Spatial decisions and neuronal activity in hippocampal projection zones in prefrontal cortex and striatum

This chapter presents a brief overview of the neural representations in the rat prefrontal cortex and striatum in spatial tasks. While both structures appear to be strongly affected by position information (and possibly hippocampal input), the nature of their representation is deeply different from the map-like structure of hippocampal-system activity. Both structures seem to be affected by combinations of factors such as task phase, current motor behavior, reward or lack thereof, and task-relevant locations. The prefrontal cortex is sensitive to the task-relevant cues, and exhibits a large deal of flexibility in changing its response characteristics when the reward contingency is changed, in accordance with its proposed role in attentional shifts. Spatial modulation of activity is often present in these two structures, but most likely in conjunction with some other influence, such as the factors mentioned above.