Differential propagation of ripples along the proximo-distal and septo-temporalaxes of dorsal CA1 of rats

The functional connectivity of the hippocampus with its primary cortical input, the entorhinal cortex, is organized topographically. In area CA1 of the hippocampus, this leads to different functional gradients along the proximo-distal and septo-temporal axes of spatial/sensory responsivity and spatial resolution respectively. CA1 ripples, a network phenomenon, allows us to test whether the hippocampal neural network shows corresponding gradients in functional connectivity along the two axes. We studied the occurrence and propagation of ripples across the entire proximo-distal axis along with a comparable spatial range of the septo-temporal axis of dorsal CA1. We observed that ripples could occur at any location, but their probability of co-occurrence and amplitude decreased with increasing distance from the reference tetrode. This reduction was greater along the proximo-distal axis than the septo-temporal axis. Furthermore, we found that ripples propagate primarily along the proximo-distal axis. Thus, over a spatial scale of ~1.5 mm, the network is anisotropic along the two axes, complementing the topographically organized cortico-hippocampal connections.