Abstract
Navigation and episodic memory depend critically on representing temporal sequences. Hippocampal ‘time cells’ form temporal sequences, but it is unknown whether they represent context-dependent experience or time per se. Here we report on time cells in bat hippocampal area CA1, which, surprisingly, formed two distinct populations. One population of time cells generated different temporal sequences when the bat hung at different locations, thus conjunctively encoding spatial context and time—‘contextual time cells’. A second population exhibited similar preferred times across different spatial contexts, thus purely encoding elapsed time. When examining neural responses after the landing moment of another bat, in a social imitation task, we found time cells that encoded temporal sequences aligned to the other’s landing. We propose that these diverse time codes may support the perception of interval timing, episodic memory and temporal coordination between self and others.
| Original language | American English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 285-294 |
| Number of pages | 10 |
| Journal | Nature Neuroscience |
| Volume | 26 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Feb 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We thank Y. Dudai, Y. Ziv, S. Ray, S. R. Maimon, G. Ginosar, A. Sarel, T. Eliav, A. Rubin, A. Ravia, S. Palgi and J. Aljadeff for discussions and comments on the manuscript; S. Kaufman, O. Gobi, S. Futerman and E. Solomon for bat training; A. Tuval for veterinary support; C. Ra’anan and R. Eilam for histology; G. Ankaoua and B. Pasmantirer for mechanical designs; and G. Brodsky for graphics. N.U. holds the Barbara and Morris Levinson Professorial Chair in Brain Research. This study was supported by research grants from the European Research Council (ERC-CoG – NATURAL_BAT_NAV) to N.U. and the Israel Science Foundation (ISF 1920/18) to N.U. and L.L. and by the André Deloro Prize for Scientific Research and the Kimmel Award for Innovative Investigation to N.U.
Funding Information:
We thank Y. Dudai, Y. Ziv, S. Ray, S. R. Maimon, G. Ginosar, A. Sarel, T. Eliav, A. Rubin, A. Ravia, S. Palgi and J. Aljadeff for discussions and comments on the manuscript; S. Kaufman, O. Gobi, S. Futerman and E. Solomon for bat training; A. Tuval for veterinary support; C. Ra’anan and R. Eilam for histology; G. Ankaoua and B. Pasmantirer for mechanical designs; and G. Brodsky for graphics. N.U. holds the Barbara and Morris Levinson Professorial Chair in Brain Research. This study was supported by research grants from the European Research Council (ERC-CoG – NATURAL_BAT_NAV) to N.U. and the Israel Science Foundation (ISF 1920/18) to N.U. and L.L. and by the André Deloro Prize for Scientific Research and the Kimmel Award for Innovative Investigation to N.U.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature America, Inc.