William Hockeimer
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Research Interests: Pyramidal neurons of the hippocampus have spatial receptive fields, called place fields, which are thought to subserve both episodic memory and spatial navigation by instantiating a cognitive map. Crucial to the cognitive map is the non-spatial information which imbues the map with rich detail about the external world. However, the details and mechanisms of this multiplexing between spatial and non-spatial information is poorly understood. My project consists of tetrode recordings of rat CA1 taken as rodents completed two different foraging tasks. Each task addresses a specific question regarding non-spatial information coding in CA1. The first explores the rate remapping hypothesis that firing rate modulations in an otherwise stable place field multiplex cue information with spatial location. The second task explores the phenomenon of place field repetition, in which neurons display multiple firing fields at similar locations. The phenomena studied in these paradigms address how CA1 represents variables other than current allocentric position using changes in firing rate, field locations, and other parameters. Collectively, these remapping effects help explain how CA1 can encode both spatial position and episodic information in the same neural network.