Visual cue-related activity of cells in the medial entorhinal cortex during navigation in virtual reality

Abstract

During spatial navigation, animals use self-motion to estimate positions through path integration. However, estimation errors accumulate over time and it is unclear how they are corrected. Here we report a new cell class (\"cue cell\") in mouse medial entorhinal cortex (MEC) that encoded visual cue information that could be used to correct errors in path integration. Cue cells accounted for a large fraction of unidentified MEC cells. They exhibited firing fields only near visual cues during virtual navigation and spatially stable activity during navigation in a real arena. Cue cells responses occurred in sequences repeated at each cue and were likely driven by visual inputs. In layers 2/3 of the MEC, cue cells formed clusters. Anatomically adjacent cue cells responded similarly to cues. These cue cell properties demonstrate that the MEC circuits contain a code representing spatial landmarks that could play a significant role in error correction during path integration.