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Brief Communication

Nature Neuroscience 3, 209–210 (1 March 2000) | doi:10.1038/72910

Three-dimensional spatial selectivity of hippocampal neurons during space flight

James J. Knierim , Bruce L. McNaughton & Gina R. Poe

|[lsquo]|Place|[rsquo]| cells of the hippocampus and |[lsquo]|head-direction|[rsquo]| (HD) cells of the thalamus and limbic cortex derive their spatial and directional specificity from a combination of idiothetic (self-motion) cues and external landmarks, which normally reinforce each other to generate a robust neural code for location and direction. In weightlessness, however, three-dimensional navigation can cause the idiothetic and landmark cues to conflict.