TY - JOUR
T1 - Three-dimensional head-direction coding in the bat brain
AU - Finkelstein, Arseny
AU - Derdikman, Dori
AU - Rubin, Alon
AU - Foerster, Jakob N.
AU - Las, Liora
AU - Ulanovsky, Nachum
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2014 Nature Publishing Group, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited. All Rights Reserved.
PY - 2014/12/3
Y1 - 2014/12/3
N2 - Navigation requires a sense of direction (‘compass’), which in mammals is thought to be provided by head-direction cells, neurons that discharge when the animal’s head points to a specific azimuth. However, it remains unclear whether a three-dimensional (3D) compass exists in the brain. Here we conducted neural recordings in bats, mammals well-adapted to 3D spatial behaviours, and found head-direction cells tuned to azimuth, pitch or roll, or to conjunctive combinations of 3D angles, in both crawling and flying bats. Head-direction cells were organized along a functional–anatomical gradient in the presubiculum, transitioning from 2D to 3D representations. In inverted bats, the azimuth-tuning of neurons shifted by 180°, suggesting that 3D head direction is represented in azimuth × pitch toroidal coordinates. Consistent with our toroidal model, pitch-cell tuning was unimodal, circular, and continuous within the available 360° of pitch. Taken together, these results demonstrate a 3D head-direction mechanism in mammals, which could support navigation in 3D space.
AB - Navigation requires a sense of direction (‘compass’), which in mammals is thought to be provided by head-direction cells, neurons that discharge when the animal’s head points to a specific azimuth. However, it remains unclear whether a three-dimensional (3D) compass exists in the brain. Here we conducted neural recordings in bats, mammals well-adapted to 3D spatial behaviours, and found head-direction cells tuned to azimuth, pitch or roll, or to conjunctive combinations of 3D angles, in both crawling and flying bats. Head-direction cells were organized along a functional–anatomical gradient in the presubiculum, transitioning from 2D to 3D representations. In inverted bats, the azimuth-tuning of neurons shifted by 180°, suggesting that 3D head direction is represented in azimuth × pitch toroidal coordinates. Consistent with our toroidal model, pitch-cell tuning was unimodal, circular, and continuous within the available 360° of pitch. Taken together, these results demonstrate a 3D head-direction mechanism in mammals, which could support navigation in 3D space.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85028133067&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/nature14031
DO - 10.1038/nature14031
M3 - ???researchoutput.researchoutputtypes.contributiontojournal.article???
C2 - 25470055
AN - SCOPUS:85028133067
SN - 0028-0836
VL - 517
SP - 159
EP - 164
JO - Nature
JF - Nature
IS - 7533
ER -