Check out our new paper in PNAS: “40 Hz sensory stimulation enhances CA3-CA1 coordination and prospective coding during navigation in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease”. Lead by Abigail Paulson with Lu Zhang and Ashley Prichard.
Despite recent work on how 40 Hz sensory stimulation, or “flicker” affects disease models and human patients, it’s unknown how flicker impacts neural correlates of memory. Using recordings of 1000s of neurons during virtual reality navigation behavior and Bayesian decoding, Abby discovered that 40 Hz flicker enhances representations of future positions, or prospective coding. These representations of future position coincide with efficient and engaged spatial navigation. We found 40 Hz flicker increases CA3-CA1 coordination during navigation. CA3-CA1 interactions play a central role in representing future experiences.
This study reveals that chronic 40 Hz flicker enhances hippocampal activity that is essential for memory encoding and retrieval. This work also demonstrates a new way to evaluate brain stimulation for Alzheimer’s disease, by assessing its effects on memory processes.