Coordinated network activity in the hippocampus

Abstract

The hippocampus expresses a variety of highly organized network states which bind its individual neurons into collective modes of activity. These patterns go along with characteristic oscillations of extracellular potential known as theta, gamma, and ripple oscillations. Such network oscillations share some important features throughout the entire central nervous system of higher animals: they are restricted to a defined behavioral state, they are mostly generated by subthreshold synaptic activity, and they entrain active neurons to fire action potentials at strictly defined phases of the oscillation cycle, thereby providing a unifying 'zeitgeber' for coordinated multineuronal activity. Recent work from the hippocampus of rodents and humans has revealed how the resulting spatiotemporal patterns support the formation of neuronal assemblies which, in our present understanding, form the neuronal correlate of spatial, declarative, or episodic memories. In this review, we introduce the major types of spatiotemporal activity patterns in the hippocampus, describe the underlying neuronal mechanisms, and illustrate the concept of memory formation within oscillating networks. Research on hippocampus-dependent memory has become a key model system at the interface between cellular and cognitive neurosciences. The next step will be to translate our increasing insight into the mechanisms and systemic functions of neuronal networks into urgently needed new therapeutic strategies.