Talk:Place cell

message: The Place cell article needs to improve citation of sources; it needs to use a standard citation format linked to a reference list. Also, care needs to be taken to explain jargon. --JWSchmidt 16:05, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please define: "a late phase" --JWSchmidt 16:52, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Taken care of. I'll take a look at the references and see where else I can add some quick citations, if anywhere. Digfarenough 17:31, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  references and jargon 

message: Jhuxter, you seem to disagree with the wording I used on an earlier edit, changing my wording of "the place cell appears to produce a rhythmic discharge of a slightly higher frequency..." to "the place cell produces...". I made that change because saying that it produces a rhythmic discharge makes it sound like phase precession is caused by the higher frequency spiking instead of the higher frequency spiking merely reflecting the precession. My interpretation of Zugaro et al. (2005) and Dragoi and Buzsaki (2006) is that precession isn't caused by an intrinsic mechanism in the hippocampus but rather by external input, which is why I prefer a wording that suggests that hippocampal place cells appear to produce higher-than-theta frequency spiking. Probably the simplest way to take care of this is to include a paragraph or two on putative mechanisms for the generation of phase precession, but I tend to lean away from including models from neuroscience in general. In summary: while it is true that mechanisms of phase precession were not being discussed there, I think it best to avoid wording that might lead to conclusions that are not supported by all the data, even if said data isn't actually discussed in the article. Digfarenough 18:38, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  produces vs. appears to produce 

message: I'd like to add a list of things that should be added to the article- if you feel that something is missing, go ahead and add it. I'll try to take a shot at writing a paragraph for these topics in the next few weeks, but if you would like to go ahead and do it (which would be greatly appreciated), feel free!
* Center of Mass Shift/ Place Field Assymetry
* CA3 versus CA1 (similarities and differences)
* A short discussion on the subiculum (as well as pre- & para-subiculum)?
* Prospective / retrospective coding
* Different types of Remapping (rate versus position) —Preceding unsigned comment added by ThetaMonkey (talk • contribs) 
:Related to remapping, Gothard et al. (1996)'s reference frame remapping (the linear track example is pretty easily explainable) showed some interesting results. One thing that I think is often underemphasized is that while place cells have stable place fields, the cells appear to be somewhat stochastic in that it is not uncommon for a cell to hardly fire at all on some passes through the field. I think perhaps the beginning of the article should be slightly changed to reflect that (as it is it sounds like a place cell always fires strongly whenever the animal is in the cell's place field). I'll be out of town for a week, which might actually give me a chance to make a few of these changes to the article. digfarenough (talk) 21:37, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Future Additions 

message: The articles claims that "In any particular environment, roughly 40-50% of the hippocampal place cells will be active". I don't think this is correct. A simple neural network model of the hippocampus suggesting its pathfinding role in episodic memory retrieval claims the number is closer to 0.1-1 % and Ensemble dynamics of hippocampal region CA3 and CA1 doesn't even mention this. And quite frankly, 50% is extremely high, even to the casual observer Paskari (talk) 21:15, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, it turns out in A simple neural network model of the hippocampus suggesting its pathfinding role in episodic memory retrieval they claimed that 0.1-1% of the cells were active at a particular location in an environment, not the entire environment. Paskari (talk) 21:32, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It actually depends on the size of the environment -- in a large enough environment, the great majority of cells will have a field somewhere.  The 40-50% figure is a reasonable approximation for dorsal CA1 cells in the environments typically used for recording, which tend to be around 1 meter across or less. Looie496 (talk) 05:31, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with the above statement- completely environment dependent. If I am recording from a rat in a shoebox, I'd imagine that I would be lucky to see one cell active. If my rat, however, ran through an aircraft hanger, I wouldn't be surprised to see most every cell fire. Although our paper was quite inaccessible, we compared the proportion of cells active in the extreme dorsal and middle hippocampus (Maurer et al., 2006) noting a dramatic difference within an environment of a fixed size. ThetaMonkey  —Preceding undated comment added 22:27, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  40-50% place cells 

message: Removed the external links. Both were dead
I will be editing this article from 10/11/13 to 12/7/13KerzNeuroscience (talk) 19:09, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed external links 

message: This article is part of a larger project by students at Middlebury College. We will be working on this page from 11-12-13 to 12-12-13. 
Middlebury College Wepage
Very complete page, nice work! Very extensive research descriptions so I can tell you guys did a great job of looking up sources to properly understand how place cells work. I suppose it would have been better to include (if possible) research involving humans. 
My main issues with it are in terms of what topics you group together: in background i'd expect to see a more extensive history of the discovery, its why and how, and the theories that preceded it. That being said you might have been working with little available information in that respect.I feel that the different parts of the page were categorized according to terms (like Place Fields, Sensory Input, etc) instead of something more straightforward like function, areas involved, etc. I find the structure of the background section a little confusing, in terms of your bouncing back and forth between the studies you describe and the actual information those studies divulged. I'd also edit the article to make it more fluid-sounding and get rid of awkward phrasing. 
Other than that, nice visual aids, great section on abnormalities! 
Chabz333--140.233.137.50 (talk) 03:45, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Comments from class Peer Editors

message: Wow, there is a lot here guys, great job! I like how in depth this page is and how many resources were referenced. It shows all of you really did your research. Most of my edits are minor details. In terms of context, I think some areas are a little repetitive and it might make sense to restructure some of the sections. The first paragraph clearly lays out the topic and I get a good sense of what the page is going to be about. The first sentence of the second paragraph seems repetitive. Maybe instead explain what a firing field is.  In the next sentence I think you want to say “studies with rats have shown” not show. The rest of the second intro paragraph is great, it explains cognitive maps very well. The quotes in the last sentence are a little confusing. I think if you are going to use a footnote it would be easier to read if you paraphrased. Otherwise the source of the quote should be introduced. The only thing in the third paragraph is that the second sentence:” Place cells fire when an animal is located in parts of the environment known as place fields,” seems repetitive of the second paragraph. 
Great Background. I don’t know if this is relevant but I would be interested to know more about the discovery. For example, how did O’Keefe discover the existence and location of place cells? What method were they using? I think in the third sentence you mean have not has. “The rat hippocampus was biologically designed to provide the rat with spatial information.” This is really interesting but needs a citation or further explanation. I really like the link describing place fields! It helped me understand the directional piece of place cells. I think you could even put this whole section above background because you reference these concepts in the background section. 
The sensory input section is clear and really interesting. Especially the part about olfactory cues! The Abnormalities section is also really well done. I think the only area that was hard to follow and a little repetitive was the ethanol section. Are there other studies with other gases or just ethanol? Other than that, this is really well written and I enjoyed reading it. I don’t think too much needs to be changed or added. 
|Maddierawding  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.233.136.61 (talk) 00:47, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Peer Review 2

message: You guys did an awesome job, this page is incredibly extensive and well researched! I’m blown away at how many references you have. Since this page is so well done I don’t think much needs to be added, all my edits are very minor. 
The first paragraph was very comprehensive of the whole topic, well done! Minor edit: in the first paragraph, you need a period between “re-mapping” and “And”. In the background section the first two sentences are a little bit repetitive. I also think that you should start the Background with “Place cells” not “These cells”. Again, a very tiny detail. Also in the third paragraph of the Background the last line says “does not does not”. I think you should also stay consistent with either bolding or italicizing words. Also in the Background, when you discuss rats briefly and then say "see below" for more info, it is definitely unclear where to look below, so either just go ahead and get rid of that or just make sure it's more obvious. 
In the Abnormalities section was very well done, it was really extensive about all the different abnormalities that could occur. In regards to the Ethanol section, in the last sentence, “Research should also be done on whether chronic ethanol exposure produces a tolerance to other abused drugs with similar properties”, does this mean that they have only tested for ethanol? Or have other drugs been tested? Also in the Vestibular Lesioning section, is it possible to be more clear about what a vestibular lesion is? 
Overall this page was great, really long and definitely in-depth. I’d just read over it again to make sure there aren’t more grammatical errors, and just get rid of any repetitive sentences. Awesome job! 
Hasstheboss (talk) 01:44, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Peer Review 3

message: ===Response 1===
Thank you for your comments and advice! We appreciate the feedback and have begun to incorporate your suggestions into a better, more informative page. We have clarified some of the information in the "Abnormalities" section, and have cleaned up some of the grammatical errors in earlier sections. Additionally, we have added more links to other Wikipedia articles and have described some of the images used in greater detail. We probably won't change the image of the hippocampus, because although the image does also include the amygdala, we feel like this won't be a necessary distinction for the general public and the 3-d rotation of the image is really helpful. We are still working on the introduction and background sections, and are most likely going to be removing some of the information here that is repeated later. Thank you so much for your help, and please feel free to comment further! Abbychick (talk) 14:46, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Response to Peer Edits

message: Thank you for your comments and advice! We appreciate the feedback and have begun to incorporate your suggestions into a better, more informative page. We have clarified some of the information in the "Abnormalities" section, and have cleaned up some of the grammatical errors in earlier sections. Additionally, we have added more links to other Wikipedia articles and have described some of the images used in greater detail. We probably won't change the image of the hippocampus, because although the image does also include the amygdala, we feel like this won't be a necessary distinction for the general public and the 3-d rotation of the image is really helpful. We are still working on the introduction and background sections, and are most likely going to be removing some of the information here that is repeated later. Thank you so much for your help, and please feel free to comment further! Abbychick (talk) 14:46, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Response 1

message: In response to several comments that the background section, specifically discovery of place cells should be expanded on, I added a paragraph in the background section on studies that have proven the information we can now conclude on place cells:
After O’Keefe and Dostrovsky first found the existence of place cells within the hippocampus in 1971, they conduced a study five years later with rats that demonstrated these place cells would fire whenever the rat was within a certain place in the environment [8] . This was one of the first indications that place cells were related to spatial orientation. They also discovered that space cells fired in different areas of the hippocampus depending on where the rat went, and this whole firing network made up the rat’s environment (O’Keefe 1976, Wilson & McNaughton 1993). As environments changed, the same place cells would fire, but the relationship and dynamic between firing fields would change (O’Keefe & Conway 1978). Therefore place cells are thought to give humans and animals a guide to the environment it is navigating and its position in that environment. Place cells are generally observed through recorded action potentials. As humans or animals navigate large environments and then arrive at a particular location, there is a notable increase in the place cell firing rate once that specific location has been reached (Eichenbaum, Dudchencko Wood, Shaprio and Tanila, 1999). For more information on studies with rats, "Place Cells and Aging".
I researched more to find information on the specific study that O'Keefe and Dostrovsky conducted in 1971 to find place cells, but I found very little information on this topic. Therefore I instead added the paragraph above to give more background on the research conducted. 
Likewise, in the "Abnormalities" section I removed the study by Ming Yi because it is not a peer-reviewed article.
Also for more clarity, I changed the sentence that reads "for more information on studies with rats, see below" to  "for more information on studies with rats, see the section 'Place Cells and Aging'" so the reader would know where to look, specifically.
cabbadi (talk) 16:32, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Response 3

message: https://knowingneurons.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/place-cell-animation.gif?w=1000&h=607, linked in the Place Field section, purports to show the activation of place cells as a rodent moves through physical space. Unfortunately, the place cell physical geometry in the animation mirrors the physical world geometry. This seems completely wrong: no research I've seen suggests this. It makes it look as if place cells in the hippocampus are behaving like a miniature paper map corresponding to the environment (with all the implied path integration data just exposed as physical place cell relationships.)  This seems to me to be just leading the reader to an incorrect mental model of how place cells work. Update: papers refer to this as a topological map versus a topographic map. text/link removed. 
MichaelNaunton (talk) 15:05, 16 September 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with your deletion of it. If nothing else, the way that it was presented in the text was clearly spammy. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:17, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Misleading/incorrect external animation 

message: This article feels a bit like a hodgepodge of all kinds of information. I'm going to try to rework it so that it flows a lot better, but still contains all the relevant information. I think it would be great if this article could get to GA status. Might take a while though, so bear with me. If anybody wants to help and/or has suggestions, please let me know. Achaea (talk) 20:04, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Rework of this article

message: I've just edited the subsection Relationship to grid cells, and will make a few tiddly changes more broadly in the article. I'm a non-expert, so expert editors may want to review my copy-editing. I was drawn here after reading the article on the entorhinal–hippocampal system in the most-recent Scientific American, which describes evidence that the system may function to help us navigate social relations (no mention of that here); the SciAm article does not clearly explain the difference between grid and place cells—in particular why we need both, and why grid cells are arranged hexagonally. This subsection does a better job of that, but I still don't think I've grasped current knowledge on the functional distinctions. Tony (talk) 07:04, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: * Hi ! I reviewed the changes, that's all fine. There's still a lot of discussion in the field as to why we need both and what their relationship is. Some theories suggest that place cells are derivatives of grid cells, so that grid cells are necessary to create place cell behaviour. Others suggest that grid cells rely on place cells. I think we need to make sure this is clear in the article, and we don't give one side undue weight. I have avoided that so far by not going too much in it, but it could definitely benefit from a bit more depth! Achaea (talk) 12:56, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Query