The hippocampus is crucial for spatial navigation and episodic memory formation. Hippocampal place cells exhibit spatially selective activity within an environment and have been proposed to form the neural basis of a cognitive map of space that supports these mnemonic functions. However, the direct influence of place cell activity on spatial navigation behavior has not yet been demonstrated. Using an ‘all-optical’ combination of simultaneous two-photon calcium imaging and two-photon optogenetics, we identified and selectively activated place cells that encoded behaviorally relevant locations in a virtual reality environment. Targeted stimulation of a small number of place cells was sufficient to bias the behavior of animals during a spatial memory task, providing causal evidence that hippocampal place cells actively support spatial navigation and memory.

海马体对于空间导航和情景记忆形成至关重要。海马位置细胞在环境中表现出空间选择性活动，并被提议形成支持这些记忆功能的空间认知图的神经基础。然而，位置细胞活动对空间导航行为的直接影响尚未得到证实。使用同时双光子钙成像和双光子光遗传学的“全光学”组合，我们识别并选择性地激活了在虚拟现实环境中编码行为相关位置的位置细胞。在空间记忆任务中，对少量位置细胞的靶向刺激足以使动物的行为产生偏差，