ArticleCurrent biology : CB2016
Absence of Visual Input Results in the Disruption of Grid Cell Firing in the Mouse.
Article in Current biology : CB, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 64 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
64 citing papers in PubMed, 174 citations in OpenAlex.
- Retrospective Grid Cells in the Medial Entorhinal Cortex Encode Past Paths During Spatial Navigation.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Tracking the Fidelity of Internal Neural Representations with Error-In-Variables Regression.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Spatial remapping in the subicular complex and entorhinal cortex follows low-dimensional geometric principles.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Continuous attractor dynamics in spatial navigation: from population geometry to flexible computation.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2026Review
- Grid cells accurately track movement during path integration-based navigation despite switching reference frames.Nature neuroscience · 2025Article
- Distinct brain regions map olfactory and visual spaces.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Article
- APOE ɛ4 and Insulin Resistance Influence Path-Integration-Based Navigation through Distinct Large-Scale Network Mechanisms.Aging and disease · 2024Article
- Article
- Intrinsic Bipolar Head-Direction Cells in the Medial Entorhinal Cortex.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2024Article
- A spatial transformation-based CAN model for information integration within grid cell modules.Cognitive neurodynamics · 2024Article
- Retrosplenial inputs drive visual representations in the medial entorhinal cortex.Cell reports · 2024Article
- Modeling the grid cell activity based on cognitive space transformation.Cognitive neurodynamics · 2024Article
- A non-canonical visual cortical-entorhinal pathway contributes to spatial navigation.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Altered grid-like coding in early blind people.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Comparison of head direction cell firing characteristics across thalamo-parahippocampal circuitry.Hippocampus · 2024Article
- Grid cells: the missing link in understanding Parkinson's disease?Frontiers in neuroscience · 2024Article
- Retrosplenial inputs drive diverse visual representations in the medial entorhinal cortex.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2023Article
- Interactions between rodent visual and spatial systems during navigation.Nature reviews. Neuroscience · 2023Review
- Simulation of oscillatory dynamics induced by an approximation of grid cell output.Reviews in the neurosciences · 2023Review
4 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Grid cells are spatially modulated neurons within the medial entorhinal cortex whose firing fields are arranged at the vertices of tessellating equilateral triangles [1]. The exquisite periodicity of their firing has led to the suggestion that they represent a path integration signal, tracking the organism's position by integrating speed and direction of movement [2-10]. External sensory inputs are required to reset any errors that the path integrator would inevitably accumulate. Here we probe the nature of the external sensory inputs required to sustain grid firing, by recording grid cells as mice explore familiar environments in complete darkness. The absence of visual cues results in a significant disruption of grid cell firing patterns, even when the quality of the directional information provided by head direction cells is largely preserved. Darkness alters the expression of velocity signaling within the entorhinal cortex, with changes evident in grid cell firing rate and the local field potential theta frequency. Short-term (<1.5 s) spike timing relationships between grid cell pairs are preserved in the dark, indicating that network patterns of excitatory and inhibitory coupling between grid cells exist independently of visual input and of spatially periodic firing. However, we find no evidence of preserved hexagonal symmetry in the spatial firing of single grid cells at comparable short timescales. Taken together, these results demonstrate that visual input is required to sustain grid cell periodicity and stability in mice and suggest that grid cells in mice cannot perform accurate path integration in the absence of reliable visual cues.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.