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Single hippocampal cells encode the spatial position of an animal by increasing their firing rates within “place fields”, and by shifting the phase of their spikes to earlier phases of the ongoing theta oscillations (theta phase precession). Whether other forms of spatial phase changes exist in the hippocampus is unknown. Here, we used high-density electrophysiological recordings in mice of either sex running back and forth on a 150 cm linear track. We found that the instantaneous phase of spikes shifts to progressively later theta phases as the animal traverses the place field. We term...

Visual input to the brain during natural behavior is highly dependent on movements of the eyes, head, and body. Neurons in mouse primary visual cortex (V1) respond to eye and head movements, but how information about eye and head position is integrated with visual processing during free movement is unknown, since visual physiology is generally performed under head-fixation. To address this, we performed single-unit electrophysiology in V1 of freely moving mice while simultaneously measuring the mouse’s eye position, head orientation, and the visual scene from the mouse’s perspective. We...

By recording and modeling sequential activity in neurons involved in motor control during the complex behavior of singing in zebra finch, Egger et al., determine that local ultraslow axonal conduction between sequentially active neurons generates network delays that underlie the pattern of network activity within the circuit.