Knock-Out of HCN1 Subunit Flattens Dorsal-Ventral Frequency Gradient of Medial Entorhinal Neurons in Adult Mice

Layer II stellate cells at different locations along the dorsal to ventral axis of medial entorhinal cortex show differences in the frequency of intrinsic membrane potential oscillations and resonance (Giocomo et al., 2007). The frequency differences scale with differences in the size and spacing of grid-cell firing fields recorded in layer II of the medial entorhinal cortex in behaving animals. To determine the mechanism for this difference in intrinsic frequency, we analyzed oscillatory properties in adult control mice and adult mice with a global deletion of the HCN1 channel. Data from whole-cell patch recordings show that the oscillation frequency gradient along the dorsal-ventral axis previously shown in juvenile rats also appears in control adult mice, indicating that the dorsal-ventral gradient generalizes across age and species. Knock-out of the HCN1 channel flattens the dorsal-ventral gradient of the membrane potential oscillation frequency, the resonant frequency, the time constant of the "sag" potential and the amplitude of the sag potential. This supports a role of the HCN1 subunit in the mechanism of the frequency gradient in these neurons. These findings have important implications for models of grid cells and generate predictions for future in vivo work on entorhinal grid cells.