Stress has deleterious effects on brain, body, and behavior in humans and animals alike. The present work investigated how 30-min acute photic stress exposure impacts on spatial information processing in the main sub-regions of the dorsal hippocampal formation [CA1, CA3, and dentate gyrus (DG)], a brain structure prominently implicated in memory and spatial representation. Recordings were perfo...

It is unclear whether the two hippocampal lobes convey similar or different activities and how they cooperate. Spatial discrimination of electric fields in anesthetized rats allowed us to compare the pathway-specific field potentials corresponding to the gamma-paced CA3 output (CA1 Schaffer potentials) and CA3 somatic inhibition within and between sides. Bilateral excitatory Schaffer gamma wave...

objective(s):growing evidence indicates that extract of ginkgo biloba (egb) attenuates hippocampal-dependent memory deficit in aged individuals; however, very little is known about the effect of egb on the structure of hippocampus. therefore we examined the egb-induced morphological changes of the cornu ammonis (ca) region in aged rats. materials and methods: sixteen aged male wistar rats, 24 m...

The mechanisms for pattern completion and pattern separation are described in the context of a theory of hippocampal function in which the hippocampal CA3 system operates as a single attractor or autoassociation network to enable rapid, one-trial, associations between any spatial location (place in rodents, or spatial view in primates) and an object or reward, and to provide for completion of t...

The hippocampal CA1 field processes spatial information, but the relative importance of intra- vs. extra-hippocampal sources of input into CA1 for spatial behavior is unclear. To characterize the relative roles of these two sources of input, originating in the hippocampal field CA3 and in the medial entorhinal cortex (MEC), we studied effects of discrete neurotoxic lesions of CA3 or MEC on conc...

Prolonged exposure to dexamethasone (DEX), a synthetic glucocorticoid receptor agonist, has been shown to induce neuronal cell death in the hippocampus. Cell death is particularly pronounced in the CA3 pyramidal neurons, inducing cognitive dysfunction. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of melatonin on hippocampal CA3 pyramidal cells in dexamethasone treated mice. The mice rece...

Gamma frequency oscillations (30-100 Hz) have been suggested to underlie various cognitive and motor functions. Here, we examine the generation of gamma oscillation currents in the hippocampus, using two-dimensional, 96-site silicon probes. Two gamma generators were identified, one in the dentate gyrus and another in the CA3-CA1 regions. The coupling strength between the two oscillators varied ...

The hippocampus appears to undergo continual representational reorganization as animals navigate their environments. This reorganization is postulated to be reflected spatially in terms of changes in the ensemble of place cells activated, as well as changes in place field specificity and reliability for cells recorded in both hilar/CA3 and CA1 regions. The specific contribution of the hilar/CA3...

Hippocampal CA1 and CA3 pyramidal neuron place cells encode the spatial location of an animal through localized firing patterns called "place fields." To explore the mechanisms that control place cell firing and their relationship to spatial memory, we studied mice with enhanced spatial memory resulting from forebrain-specific knockout of the HCN1 hyperpolarization-activated cation channel. HCN...

Recent studies have shown that place cells in the hippocampal CA1 region fire in a sequence sensitive manner. In this study we tested if hippocampal CA3 and CA1 regions can give rise to the sequence sensitivity. We used a two-layer CA3-CA1 hippocampal model that consisted of Hodgkin-Huxley style neuron models. Sequential input signals that mimicked signals projected from the entorhinal cortex g...