高度视觉动物通过凝视远程激活位置代码，这一成果由美国哥伦比亚大学Dmitriy Aronov课题组经过不懈努力而取得。2025年6月11日出版的《自然》发表了这项成果。

在这里，该研究组研究了一种高度视觉化的动物——山雀，它的行为需要在远程视觉搜索和空间导航之间交替进行。该研究组利用鸟类头部导向的视觉特性来追踪自由移动动物的凝视。课题组发现了位置编码和凝视之间的深刻联系。位置细胞不仅在山雀处于特定位置时被激活，当它只是从远处凝视那个位置时也会被激活。凝视编码是通过快速的头部运动来精确计时的，称为“头部扫视”。在每个跳跃性循环中，海马体在对鸟即将看到的东西的预测和对它实际看到的东西的反应之间切换。这些反应的时间结构由在扫视的不同阶段放电的中间神经元亚类协调。研究小组认为，位置和凝视编码是一个统一过程的组成部分，通过这个过程，海马体代表了与动物在每个时刻相关的位置。这一过程使海马体能够实现本地和远程空间功能。

研究人员表示，视觉使许多动物能够在遥远的地方进行空间推理。通过观察远处的地标，动物可以回忆空间记忆并规划未来的轨迹。虽然这些空间功能依赖于海马体位置细胞，但位置细胞与主动视觉行为之间的关系尚不清楚。

附：英文原文

Title: Remote activation of place codes by gaze in a highly visual animal

Author: Payne, Hannah L., Aronov, Dmitriy

Issue&Volume: 2025-06-11

Abstract: Vision enables many animals to perform spatial reasoning from remote locations1. By viewing distant landmarks, animals recall spatial memories and plan future trajectories. Although these spatial functions depend on hippocampal place cells2,3, the relationship between place cells and active visual behaviour is unknown. Here we studied a highly visual animal, the chickadee, in a behaviour that required alternating between remote visual search and spatial navigation. We leveraged the head-directed nature of avian vision to track gaze in freely moving animals. We discovered a profound link between place coding and gaze. Place cells activated not only when the chickadee was in a specific location, but also when it simply gazed at that location from a distance. Gaze coding was precisely timed by fast ballistic head movements called ‘head saccades’4,5. On each saccadic cycle, the hippocampus switched between encoding a prediction of what the bird was about to see and a reaction to what it actually saw. The temporal structure of these responses was coordinated by subclasses of interneurons that fired at different phases of the saccade. We suggest that place and gaze coding are components of a unified process by which the hippocampus represents the location that is relevant to the animal in each moment. This process allows the hippocampus to implement both local and remote spatial functions.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09101-z

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09101-z