@article {5103, title = {Hippocampal place fields emerge upon single-cell manipulation of excitability during behavior.}, journal = {Science}, volume = {337}, year = {2012}, month = {2012 Aug 17}, pages = {849-53}, abstract = {

The origin of the spatial receptive fields of hippocampal place cells has not been established. A hippocampal CA1 pyramidal cell receives thousands of synaptic inputs, mostly from other spatially tuned neurons; however, how the postsynaptic neuron{\textquoteright}s cellular properties determine the response to these inputs during behavior is unknown. We discovered that, contrary to expectations from basic models of place cells and neuronal integration, a small, spatially uniform depolarization of the spatially untuned somatic membrane potential of a silent cell leads to the sudden and reversible emergence of a spatially tuned subthreshold response and place-field spiking. Such gating of inputs by postsynaptic neuronal excitability reveals a cellular mechanism for receptive field origin and may be critical for the formation of hippocampal memory representations.

}, issn = {1095-9203}, doi = {10.1126/science.1221489}, author = {Lee, Doyun and Lin, Bei-Jung and Lee, Albert K} }