Fig. 5: Spatial coding ability across days during early development.

a Left: example contour plot of the distribution of spatial information (SI) in 1D and 2D environments. Right: Schematic for calculating the weighted spatial information (wSI). b–d Example cells with high wSI in two consecutive days. Spatial rate maps on the track (top) and in the box (bottom) were shown. The shaded region indicates SD. e Contour plots of wSI distribution in adjacent days at various ages. The Spearman’s rank correlation coefficients of the wSI between two days and the respective p values were labeled. f Correlation of wSI between adjacent days. Data presented as observed values ± the 5^th and 95^th percentiles of the bootstrapped distribution. Correlation values decreased with age (Pearson correlation coefficient r = − 0.74, p = 0.02, n = 9 day pairs) but not with the recording days in adults (r = 0.34, p = 0.36, n = 9 day pairs). The correlation value at early ages was significantly higher compared to adults (one-sided Permutation test with Bonferroni correlation, P17-18 vs. Day 1-2: p < 0.001). g Top: cells divided into ten equal groups based on wSI at each age. Bottom: wSI for the same cells on the following day. Dots with bars indicate mean ± SEM. A linear regression fit was applied to the mean wSI of ten groups. h SI for the cells tracked across many days in the 2D environment. Cells were categorized into six equal groups based on SI at P17 or Day 1 at adult, and linear regression fit was applied to data from P18-P22 or Day 2-5 for each group. Data presented as mean ± SEM. The slope for Group 1 (lowest SI) was significantly higher than that for Group 6 (highest SI) at early ages (ANCOVA: F_1,346 = 14.38, p = 2 × 10^–4), but not for adults (F_{1, 572} = 0.34, p = 0.56). i Same as (h), but for the 1D environment. Group 1 had a significantly higher slope than Group 6 at early ages (ANCOVA: F_1,396 = 18.3, p = 2.34 × 10^–5), but not for adults (F_{1, 272} = 18.33, p = 0.47). Source data are provided as a Source Data file.