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Hippogate: a break-in from entorhinal cortex

Nature Neuroscience volume 19, pages 530–532 (2016)Cite this article

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Discrimination of neutral from harmful environments is important for survival. But how do salient contextual signals yield persisting memories? A study uncovers a circuit that increases the specificity of hippocampus-based memories.

Much to the barely concealed delight of news anchors, the list of unsavory scandals with the '-gate' suffix seems never ending. But why is it that the memory of the painful turmoil caused by the infamous break-in scandal at the Watergate hotel remains sharp, and yet what one ate for dinner last Tuesday is already forgotten? Although much has been learned in neurobiology about the ins and outs of memory encoding, the precise circuit mechanisms allowing selective encoding of salient events remains to be demonstrated. A recent study1 published in Science has succeeded in moving us a step closer to understanding how the entorhino-hippocampal network in the temporal lobe is wired to specifically respond to and store such salient sensory stimuli. This study reports the discovery of long-range inhibitory fibers from the lateral entorhinal cortex (LEC). These fibers, when activated by appropriate stimuli, can function as keys to unlock the hippocampal gate and allow information to flow in from the LEC.

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Figure 1: Functional organization of the LEC-hippocampus circuit.

Katie Vicari/Nature Publishing Group

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  1. Allyson Alexander and Ivan Soltesz are in the Department of Neurosurgery, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.,

    Allyson Alexander & Ivan Soltesz

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  1. Allyson Alexander
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  2. Ivan Soltesz
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Correspondence to Allyson Alexander or Ivan Soltesz.

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Alexander, A., Soltesz, I. Hippogate: a break-in from entorhinal cortex. Nat Neurosci 19, 530–532 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.4253

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