Topic: sleep-dependent learning

During sleep, spontaneous neuronal activity in the spatial navigation system recapitulates previous wake experiences, and this phenomenon is instrumental for learning and memory. Specifically, in the hippocampus, place cell ensembles are spontaneously replayed in sequences corresponding to trajectories of the animal in previously visited environments1. In parallel, head-direction cells of the anterodorsal thalamic nucleus which fire for a specific direction of the animal’s head, remain coordinated during sleep. The HD signal is crucial for spatial navigation and the anterior thalamus is necess