美国斯坦福大学医学院Lisa M. Giocomo等研究人员合作发现，下托神经元编码凹面和凸面几何结构。2024年3月6日，《自然》杂志在线发表了这项成果。
研究人员发现背侧下托含有神经元，这些神经元能在以分配为中心的参照系中对环境几何图形中的拐角进行编码。通过对自由活动的小鼠进行纵向钙成像，研究人员发现角细胞会调整其活动以反映角的几何特性，包括角角度、墙壁高度和墙壁交叉程度。一个独立的下托神经元群对较大环境和离散物体的凸角进行编码。
这两种角细胞与编码环境边界的下托神经元群不重叠。此外，编码凹角或凸角的角细胞会将其活动泛化，从而分别对环境中的凹面或凸面曲率做出反应。总之，这些研究结果表明，下托包含重建自然空间环境的形状和布局所需的几何信息。
据介绍，自然界中的动物经常会遇到几何形状复杂的景观。成功的导航要求它们了解这些景观的几何特征，包括边界、地标、拐角和弯曲区域，所有这些共同定义了环境的几何图形。重建自然环境几何布局的关键是凹凸特征，如拐角和突出物。然而，能够感知环境中凹凸特征的神经基质仍然难以捉摸。
附：英文原文
Title: Subicular neurons encode concave and convex geometries
Author: Sun, Yanjun, Nitz, Douglas A., Xu, Xiangmin, Giocomo, Lisa M.
Issue&Volume: 2024-03-06
Abstract: Animals in the natural world constantly encounter geometrically complex landscapes. Successful navigation requires that they understand geometric features of these landscapes, including boundaries, landmarks, corners and curved areas, all of which collectively define the geometry of the environment1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12. Crucial to the reconstruction of the geometric layout of natural environments are concave and convex features, such as corners and protrusions. However, the neural substrates that could underlie the perception of concavity and convexity in the environment remain elusive. Here we show that the dorsal subiculum contains neurons that encode corners across environmental geometries in an allocentric reference frame. Using longitudinal calcium imaging in freely behaving mice, we find that corner cells tune their activity to reflect the geometric properties of corners, including corner angles, wall height and the degree of wall intersection. A separate population of subicular neurons encode convex corners of both larger environments and discrete objects. Both corner cells are non-overlapping with the population of subicular neurons that encode environmental boundaries. Furthermore, corner cells that encode concave or convex corners generalize their activity such that they respond, respectively, to concave or convex curvatures within an environment. Together, our findings suggest that the subiculum contains the geometric information needed to reconstruct the shape and layout of naturalistic spatial environments.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07139-z
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07139-z
Nature：《自然》，创刊于1869年。隶属于施普林格·自然出版集团，最新IF：69.504
官方网址：http://www.nature.com/
投稿链接：http://www.nature.com/authors/submit_manuscript.html
本期文章：《自然》：Online/在线发表
