A distinctive subpopulation of medial septal slow - firing 2 neurons promote hippocampal activation and theta 3 oscillations 4 5 Running title : Pro - arousal slow - firing neurons in MSvDB 6 7

1 A distinctive subpopulation of medial septal slow-firing 2 neurons promote hippocampal activation and theta 3 oscillations 4 5 Running title: Pro-arousal slow-firing neurons in MSvDB 6 7 Hao Zhang , Shih-Chieh Lin, Miguel A.L. Nicolelis 8 9 1 Dept. of Neurobiology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA 10 2 Center for Neuroengineering, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA 11 3 National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health, Baltimore, MD, USA 12 4 Dept. of Biomedical Engineering, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA 13 5 Dept. of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA 14 6 Edmond and Lily Safra International Institute of Neuroscience of Natal, Natal 15 RN, Brazil 16 17 † Corresponding author 18 Hao Zhang 19 101 Bryan Research Building, 311 Research Dr. 20 Dept. Neurobiology, Duke University Medical Center 21 Durham, NC 27705 22 USA 23 [email protected] 24 919-668-3174 25 26 Title: 118 characters; 27 Figures: 8; 28 Pages: 43 ; 29 30