Behavioral Correlates and Firing Repertoires of Neurons in the Dorsal Hippocampal Formation and Septum of Unrestrained Rats

The experiments reported here are among the simplest experiments one might do on the nervous system. We simply record action potentials from a single neuron in the dorsal hippocampal formation and septum in an unrestrained rat and study the correlation between the firing of the neuron and the behavior of a rat. However, there is no reason to believe that this approach is going to be valuable. If one were to record from a single element in a computer and try to correlate voltages at this element with either the input or the output of the computer, one would, in general, not learn much of use, except perhaps about the input and output devices. Clearly, the firing of some neurons in the brain has something to do with overt behavior or with information coming into the brain, especially for those neurons within a few synapses of a receptor or effector. Equally clearly, there are some things going on in the brain which do not have a simple relation to overt behavior or inputs to brain. The hippocampus is many synapses away from sensory or motor neurons, so simple relations cannot be expected.