Place Cells in Space: Hippocampal Recordings from the Space Shuttle

Fri, 27 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Navigating Without Gravity

How does the brain know where you are? In mammals, hippocampal “place cells” fire at specific locations, forming an internal map of the environment. These cells rely on a combination of visual landmarks and self-motion cues, including signals from the vestibular system that sense gravity and head orientation, to maintain a stable spatial code.

But what happens when you remove gravity from the equation?

This was the question behind one of the most unusual neuroscience experiments ever conducted. During the Neurolab Space Shuttle mission (STS-90) in April 1998, James Knierim, Bruce McNaughton, and Gina Poe recorded ensembles of hippocampal place cells from three freely moving rats in microgravity, the only recordings of navigation-related neurons from freely behaving animals in space.

Pynapple on DANDI

Place Cells in Space: Hippocampal Recordings from the Space Shuttle

Navigating Without Gravity