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Hippocampal theta rhythms follow the beat of their own drum

Nature Neuroscience volume 12, pages 1483–1484 (2009)Cite this article

The firing of most hippocampal neurons is modulated by the theta rhythm, but it's not clear how and where the rhythm is generated. A study now shows that the required machinery for theta generation lies in local circuits of the hippocampus.

The hippocampal theta rhythm is one of the largest synchronous signals in the mammalian brain. Theta rhythms are essential for linking distributed cell ensembles during key functions of the hippocampus, such as learning and spatial navigation. The search for its origins began more than 50 years ago when lesions of the medial septum were found to disrupt hippocampal theta1. Subsequent studies found that medial septal neurons discharged synchronously with hippocampal theta, leading researchers to suggest the medial-septum diagonal-band area as the theta pacemaker2,3. In this issue, Goutagny et al.4 provide fresh insight into this matter by showing that theta rhythms with properties similar to those of the living animal emerge in a whole-hippocampus in vitro preparation without input from external sources and without the addition of any drugs that might mimic aspects of septal stimulation.

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Figure 1: The upper trace shows theta recorded from the CA1 apical dendrites of a freely moving rat (L.L.C. and E.I.M., unpublished data), whereas the lower trace shows theta waves in the whole-hippocampus preparation of Goutagny et al.4 (their Fig. 1c).

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  1. Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience and Centre for the Biology of Memory, Medical-Technical Research Centre, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway

    Laura Lee Colgin & Edvard I Moser

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  1. Laura Lee Colgin
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  2. Edvard I Moser
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Correspondence to Edvard I Moser.

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Colgin, L., Moser, E. Hippocampal theta rhythms follow the beat of their own drum. Nat Neurosci 12, 1483–1484 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1209-1483

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