Coordinated emergence of hippocampal replay and theta sequences during post-natal development

Abstract

Hippocampal place cells encode an animals current position in space during exploration[1]. During subsequent sleep, hippocampal network activity recapitulates patterns observed during recent experience: place cells with overlapping spatial firing fields during locomotion show a greater tendency to co-fire ( reactivation) [2] and temporally ordered and compressed sequences of place cell firing observed during wakefulness are reinstated ( replay) [3-5]. Reactivation and replay are thought to be network mechanisms underlying memory consolidation [6-10].