Cheng, Han Yin;
(2020)
Neural Encoding of Local vs. Global Space: From Structure to Function.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
The retrosplenial cortex may be important for navigating visually similar compartmentalised spaces by conjunctively encoding both local and global environments. Previously, a novel directional signal that encodes local spaces was found in the dysgranular retrosplenial cortex (dRSC) while global head direction encoding was found in both dRSC and granular retrosplenial cortex (gRSC; Jacob et al., 2017). This thesis addresses two questions arising from this finding: (i) how does the local directional signal arise? and (ii) do the downstream place cells (cells that display spatially constrained firing) display local or global encoding? The first question was explored by retrogradely labelling the neuronal inputs into the two retrosplenial regions under the hypothesis that the differences in directional encoding are due to differences in their inputs. Particularly, gRSC was found to receive more inputs from anterodorsal thalamus, which was previously shown to display global encoding (Jacob et al., 2017). In addition, gRSC, but not dRSC, received inputs from dorsal subiculum which is the main output structure of hippocampus. It is however unclear if place cell in hippocampus displayed local or global place encoding. The second question thus arises: Do place cells display local or global place encoding? As hippocampus is strongly coupled with gRSC, place cells were predicted to show a global representation similar to that in gRSC. Extracellular recording of place cells in an environment with two differentially scented, visually rotated compartments showed that no place cells that are sensitive to the local visual scene were found. Thus, place cells displayed global encoding. Together, these findings indicate that global encoding in gRSC may be a consequence of its stronger coupling with vestibular-directional nuclei and the hippocampal system, both of which displayed global encoding. In contrast, the local encoding observed in dRSC may reflect its structural disconnect from the global spatial network.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | Neural Encoding of Local vs. Global Space: From Structure to Function |
| Event: | UCL (University College London) |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2020. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10116497 |
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