Hippocampal astrocytes represent navigation space

Hippocampal place cells, which display location-specific activity, are known to encode spatial information. A recent study in PLOS Biology by Curreli and colleagues shows that hippocampal astrocytes are implicated in encoding complementary spatial information, suggesting the existence of glial place cells.

Automated summary

A recent study suggests the existence of glial place cells in the hippocampus, as hippocampal astrocytes were found to encode complementary spatial information in addition to the location-specific activity of place cells.