Hippocampal replay

Hippocampal replay is a phenomenon observed in rats, mice, cats, rabbits, songbirds and monkeys. During sleep or awake rest, replay refers to the re-occurrence of a sequence of cell activations that also occurred during activity, but the replay has a much faster time scale. It may be in the same order, or in reverse. Cases were also found where a sequence of activations occurs before the actual activity, but it is still the same sequence. This is called preplay.

The phenomenon has mostly been observed in the hippocampus, a brain region associated with memory and spatial navigation. Specifically, the cells that exhibit this behavior are place cells, characterized by reliably increasing their activity when the animal is in a certain location in space. During navigation, the place cells fire in a sequence according to the path of the animal. In a replay instance, the cells are activated as if in response to the same spatial path, but at a much faster rate than the animal actually moved in.