Neurons in the medial prefrontal cortex are involved in spatial tuning and signaling upcoming choice independently from hippocampal sharp-wave ripples

Abstract

The hippocampus is known to encode spatial information and reactivate experienced trajectories during sharp-wave ripple events. These events are thought to be key time-points at which information about learned trajectories is transferred to the neocortex for long-term storage. It is unclear, however, how this information may be transferred and integrated in downstream cortical regions. In this study, we performed high-density probe recordings across the full depth of the medial prefrontal cortex and in the hippocampus simultaneously in rats while they were performing a task of spatial navigation. We find that neurons in the medial prefrontal cortex encode spatial information and reliably predict upcoming choice on a maze, and we find that a subset of neurons in the mPFC is modulated by hippocampal sharp-wave ripples. However, sharp-wave ripple modulation does not appear to be the main driving factor in predicting upcoming choice. This indicates that the integration of spatial information requires the collaboration of different specialized populations of neurons.