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Choice of method of place cell classification determines the population of cells identified

Place cells, spatially responsive hippocampal cells, provide the neural substrate supporting navigation and spatial memory. Historically most studies of these neurons have used electrophysiological recordings from implanted electrodes but optical methods, measuring intracellular calcium, are becomin...

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Autores principales: Grijseels, Dori M., Shaw, Kira, Barry, Caswell, Hall, Catherine N.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8291744/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34237050
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008835
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author Grijseels, Dori M.
Shaw, Kira
Barry, Caswell
Hall, Catherine N.
author_facet Grijseels, Dori M.
Shaw, Kira
Barry, Caswell
Hall, Catherine N.
author_sort Grijseels, Dori M.
collection PubMed
description Place cells, spatially responsive hippocampal cells, provide the neural substrate supporting navigation and spatial memory. Historically most studies of these neurons have used electrophysiological recordings from implanted electrodes but optical methods, measuring intracellular calcium, are becoming increasingly common. Several methods have been proposed as a means to identify place cells based on their calcium activity but there is no common standard and it is unclear how reliable different approaches are. Here we tested four methods that have previously been applied to two-photon hippocampal imaging or electrophysiological data, using both model datasets and real imaging data. These methods use different parameters to identify place cells, including the peak activity in the place field, compared to other locations (the Peak method); the stability of cells’ activity over repeated traversals of an environment (Stability method); a combination of these parameters with the size of the place field (Combination method); and the spatial information held by the cells (Information method). The methods performed differently from each other on both model and real data. In real datasets, vastly different numbers of place cells were identified using the four methods, with little overlap between the populations identified as place cells. Therefore, choice of place cell detection method dramatically affects the number and properties of identified cells. Ultimately, we recommend the Peak method be used in future studies to identify place cell populations, as this method is robust to moderate variations in place field within a session, and makes no inherent assumptions about the spatial information in place fields, unless there is an explicit theoretical reason for detecting cells with more narrowly defined properties.
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spelling pubmed-82917442021-07-31 Choice of method of place cell classification determines the population of cells identified Grijseels, Dori M. Shaw, Kira Barry, Caswell Hall, Catherine N. PLoS Comput Biol Research Article Place cells, spatially responsive hippocampal cells, provide the neural substrate supporting navigation and spatial memory. Historically most studies of these neurons have used electrophysiological recordings from implanted electrodes but optical methods, measuring intracellular calcium, are becoming increasingly common. Several methods have been proposed as a means to identify place cells based on their calcium activity but there is no common standard and it is unclear how reliable different approaches are. Here we tested four methods that have previously been applied to two-photon hippocampal imaging or electrophysiological data, using both model datasets and real imaging data. These methods use different parameters to identify place cells, including the peak activity in the place field, compared to other locations (the Peak method); the stability of cells’ activity over repeated traversals of an environment (Stability method); a combination of these parameters with the size of the place field (Combination method); and the spatial information held by the cells (Information method). The methods performed differently from each other on both model and real data. In real datasets, vastly different numbers of place cells were identified using the four methods, with little overlap between the populations identified as place cells. Therefore, choice of place cell detection method dramatically affects the number and properties of identified cells. Ultimately, we recommend the Peak method be used in future studies to identify place cell populations, as this method is robust to moderate variations in place field within a session, and makes no inherent assumptions about the spatial information in place fields, unless there is an explicit theoretical reason for detecting cells with more narrowly defined properties. Public Library of Science 2021-07-08 /pmc/articles/PMC8291744/ /pubmed/34237050 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008835 Text en © 2021 Grijseels et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Grijseels, Dori M.
Shaw, Kira
Barry, Caswell
Hall, Catherine N.
Choice of method of place cell classification determines the population of cells identified
title Choice of method of place cell classification determines the population of cells identified
title_full Choice of method of place cell classification determines the population of cells identified
title_fullStr Choice of method of place cell classification determines the population of cells identified
title_full_unstemmed Choice of method of place cell classification determines the population of cells identified
title_short Choice of method of place cell classification determines the population of cells identified
title_sort choice of method of place cell classification determines the population of cells identified
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8291744/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34237050
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008835
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