Firing rate adaptation in grid cells produces macroscopic hexadirectional modulation

Abstract

Hexadirectional modulation (HexMod) of macroscopic neural activity by movement direction is widely used to measure grid cell activity in human neuroimaging, but its neuronal origin is unclear. Two mechanisms have been proposed: conjunctive gridxdirection cells whose preferred directions align with the grid axes, and firing rate adaptation, which reduces firing when grid fields are visited in quick succession during movement along grid axes. Analysing almost 4,000 grid cells from foraging rats, we found that conjunctive cells' directional tuning was broad and unaligned with grid axes, whereas firing was reduced shortly after grid field visits, consistent with firing rate adaptation. Simulations of realistic grid cell populations demonstrate HexMod with the typical trajectories of human experiments, and show how it depends on grid scale, adaptation time constant, movement speed, and controlling for variation with location. We show firing rate adaptation provides a plausible mechanism for HexMod and a framework for relating human neuroimaging to neuronal activity.