A successful defense for Dr. Milenna van Dijk

Congrats to Dr. Milenna van Dijk on successfully defending her thesis and on her Neuron paper!

Dentate gyrus neurons signal distinct memories and memory-related information by sub-second patterns of strong, weak, and independent co-firing, that are transiently enhanced by increased co-firing between excitatory and inhibitory cells. They don't signal distinct memories by remapping.

This is conceptually similar to the behavior of a large flock of flying starlings. The flock can take on many complex patterns while maintaining its cohesion as a flock. Different flock patterns occur when just a small number of starlings change course, responding for example, to avoid a threat, such as a predatory hawk. Similarly, transient increases of excitatory-inhibitory co-firing can signal memory discrimination within the globally-maintained spatial tuning and scale-free correlation structure of the discharging population of dentate place cells.