Phase-locking of neurons in the hippocampus and the medial prefrontal cortex of the rat to the hippocampal theta rhythm

Abstract

The interactions between cortical and hippocampal circuits are critical for memory formation, yet their basic organization at the neuronal network level is not well understood. Here we investigate the timing relationships between neuronal activity in the medial prefrontal cortex of freely behaving rats and the hippocampal theta rhythm. We demonstrate that a significant portion of prefrontal neurons are phase-locked to the hippocampal theta rhythm and we compare the phase-locking properties of prefrontal and hippocampal cells. We also show that prefrontal neurons phase-lock best to theta oscillations delayed by approximately 50 ms and confirm this hippocampo-prefrontal directionality and timing at the level of correlations between single cells. Finally we demonstrate that phase-locking of prefrontal cells is predicted by the presence of significant correlations with hippocampal cells at positive delays up to 150 ms, suggesting that direct hippocampal input has an important contribution to the observed prefrontal phase-locking. The theta entrained activity across cortico-hippocampal circuits described here may be important for gating information flow and guiding the plastic changes that are believed to underlie the storage of information across these networks.