Place Cell Remapping

Hippocampal place fields, global vs partial remapping, context switching

N Place Cells 30
Field Width (σ) 28
Remapping % 50%
Animal Speed 3
A
Current Context
—
Population Overlap
0
Active Cells
0.0
Peak Rate (Hz)

About

Hippocampal place cells (O'Keefe & Dostrovsky, 1971; Nobel Prize 2014) fire selectively when an animal occupies a specific location — its "place field." When an animal is moved to a different environment or context, the entire population of place cells can adopt a completely new firing pattern: global remapping involves both rate and location changes for all cells, while partial remapping changes only the rate (not location) of a subset. This context-dependent reorganization is thought to be the neural substrate of episodic memory, allowing the hippocampus to store distinct representations of different experiences.