The predominant excitatory synaptic input to the hippocampus arises from entorhinal cortical axons that synapse with dentate granule cells, which in turn synapse with CA3 pyramidal cells. Thus two highly excitable brain areas--the entorhinal cortex and the CA3 field--are separated by dentate granule cells, which have been proposed to function as a gate or filter. However, unlike rats, primates ...

Chronic recordings in the medial entorhinal cortex of behaving rats have found grid cells, neurons that fire when the rat is in a hexagonal array of locations. Grid cells recorded at different dorsal-ventral anatomical positions show systematic changes in size and spacing of firing fields. To test possible mechanisms underlying these differences, we analyzed properties of the hyperpolarization-...

The hippocampus is thought to initiate systems-wide mnemonic processes through the reactivation of previously acquired spatial and episodic memory traces, which can recruit the entorhinal cortex as a first stage of memory redistribution to other brain areas. Hippocampal reactivation occurs during sharp wave-ripples, in which synchronous network firing encodes sequences of places. We investigate...

Population transmembrane currents and neuronal firing in different layers of the human entorhinal cortex (ER) were recorded during semantic and episodic memory processes using a linear array of 24 laminar microelectrodes. Both measures, as well as local broadband spectral power, increased during retrieval of newly-learned characteristics, especially in superficial layers. No differences were ob...

Background Mild behavioral impairment (MBI) refers to the de novo emergence of persistent neuropsychiatric symptoms in older adults and has been associated with cognitive decline incident dementia. The purpose this study was identify structural neural correlates MBI using a hypothesis-driven region-of-interest (ROI) approach. Method cohort consisted 744 participants (60.3% female; mean SD age =...

Normal aging is often difficult to distinguish from the earliest stages of Alzheimer's disease. Years before clinical memory deficits manifest, amyloid-β deposits in the cortex in many older individuals. Neuroimaging studies indicate that a set of densely connected neocortical regions, referred to as the default network, is especially vulnerable to amyloid-β deposition. Yet, the impact of amylo...

The predominant excitatory synaptic input to the hippocampus arises from entorhinal cortical axons that synapse with dentate granule cells, which in turn synapse with CA3 pyramidal cells. Thus, two highly excitable brain areas – the entorhinal cortex and the CA3 field – are separated by dentate granule cells, which have been proposed to function as a gate or filter. However, unlike rats, primat...

Dual transneuronal tracing is a novel viral tracing methodology which employs two recombinant viruses, each expressing a different reporter protein. Peripheral injection of recombinant pseudorabies viruses has been used as a powerful method to define neurons that coordinate outputs to various peripheral targets of motor and autonomic systems. Here, we assessed the feasibility of recombinants of...

Theta (6-12 Hz) field potentials and the synchronization (coherence) of these potentials present neural network indices of hippocampal physiology. Theta signals within the hippocampal formation may reflect alterations in sensorimotor integration, the flow of sensory input, and/or distinct cognitive operations. While the power and coherence of theta signals vary across lamina within the septal h...

The human medial temporal lobe (MTL) is an important part of the limbic system, and its substructures play key roles in learning, memory, and neurodegeneration. The MTL includes the hippocampus (HC), amygdala (AG), parahippocampal cortex (PHC), entorhinal cortex, and perirhinal cortex--structures that are complex in shape and have low between-structure intensity contrast, making them difficult ...