Emergence of novel-path sequences during a maze task in hippocampal CA3 spiking neural network model

Abstract

Hippocampal neurons that representing the animal's self-location are called “place cells”. During the maze task, sequential firing of place cells during exploration is reproduced as fast synchronous firing during rest in rodents, which is called hippocampal replay. Reverse replays firing in the reverse order of the path occur, and replays of pathways not experienced by the rats also occur. The majority of the replays of pathways not experienced represent shortcuts to reward points in the maze. These observations suggest that hippocampal replay contributes to spatial learning. However, there is a lack of spiking neural networks with mechanisms for the emergence of replays of shortcut pathways. In this study, we constructed a spiking neural network of the hippocampal CA3 region. We propose a possible mechanism by which shortcut replays are acquired through synaptic plasticity during a figure-eight maze exploration. In the proposed hippocampal spiking network, the combination of forward and reverse replays results in shortcut replays.