Temporal dynamics of cholinergic activity in the septo-hippocampal system

Cholinergic projection neurons in the medial septum and diagonal band of Broca are the major source of cholinergic modulation of hippocampal circuit functions that support neural coding of location and running speed. Changes in cholinergic modulation are known to correlate with changes in brain states, cognitive functions, and behavior. However, whether cholinergic modulation can change fast enough to serve as a potential speed signal in hippocampal and parahippocampal cortices and whether the temporal dynamics in such a signal depend on the presence of visual cues remain unknown. In this study, we use a fiber-photometric approach to quantify the temporal dynamics of cholinergic activity in freely moving mice as a function of the animal’s movement speed and visual cues. We show that the population activity of cholinergic neurons in the medial septum and diagonal band of Broca changes fast enough to be aligned well with changes in the animal’s running speed and is strongly and linearly correlated to the logarithm of the animal’s running speed. Intriguingly, the cholinergic modulation remains strongly and linearly correlated to the speed of the animal’s neck movements during periods of stationary activity. Furthermore, we show that cholinergic modulation is unaltered during darkness. Lastly, we identify rearing, a stereotypic behavior where the mouse stands on its hindlimbs to scan the environment from an elevated perspective, is associated with higher cholinergic activity than expected from neck movements on the horizontal plane alone. Taken together, these data show that temporal dynamics in the cholinergic modulation of hippocampal circuits are fast enough to provide a potential running speed signal in real-time. Moreover, the data show that cholinergic modulation is primarily a function of the logarithm of the animal’s movement speed, both during locomotion and during stationary activity, with no significant interaction with visual inputs. These data advance our understanding of temporal dynamics in cholinergic modulation of hippocampal circuits and their functions in the context of neural coding of location and running speed.