We investigated the importance of hippocampal theta oscillations and the significance of phase differences of theta modulation in the cortical regions that are involved in goal-directed spatial navigation. Our models used representations of entorhinal cortex layer III (ECIII), hippocampus and prefrontal cortex (PFC) to guide movements of a virtual @entity35 in a virtual environment. The model encoded representations of the environment through long-term potentiation of excitatory recurrent connections between sequentially spiking place cells in ECIII and @entity1251 . This encoding required buffering of place cell activity, which was achieved by a short-term memory (STM) in EC that was regulated by theta modulation and allowed synchronized reactivation with encoding phases in ECIII and @entity1251 . Inhibition at a specific theta phase deactivated the oldest item in the buffer when new input was presented to a full STM buffer. A 180 degrees phase difference separated retrieval and encoding in ECIII and @entity1251 , which enabled us to simulate data on theta phase precession of place cells. Retrieval of known paths was elicited in ECIII by input at the retrieval phase from PFC working memory for goal location, requiring strict theta phase relationships with PFC. Known locations adjacent to the virtual @entity35 were retrieved in @entity1251 . Together, input from ECIII and @entity1251 activated predictive spiking in cells in @entity1249 for the next desired place on a shortest path to a goal. Consistent with data, place cell activity in @entity1249 and @entity1251 showed smaller place fields than in ECIII.

Modeling goal-directed spatial navigation in the XXXX based on physiological data from the hippocampal formation.

@entity35 :: ('10116', 'Species') :: ['rat'] @entity1251 :: ('54232(Tax:10116)', 'Gene') :: ['CA3'] @entity1249 :: ('310218(Tax:10116)', 'Gene') :: ['CA1']
@entity35 :: (10116,Species) :: ['rat']
