Abstract
Landmarks guide navigation by providing information through their location and identity. The medial entorhinal cortex (MEC) is well known for representing landmark location, but whether it also encodes landmark identity remains unclear. Here we show, using two-photon calcium imaging of MEC neurons in mice navigating multiple virtual environments, that a population of neurons known as cue cells encodes landmark identity. Cue cells respond selectively to individual landmarks and produce more distinct activity patterns for visually disparate landmarks than for identical ones. Identity encoding is modulated by the spatial shift of cue cell activity relative to landmark location and is context dependent, changing across environments, but remaining stable within the same environment despite repeated experience. In contrast, cue cells’ representation of landmark location changes with experience. Grid cells, another major MEC cell type, more strongly represent landmark location, but only weakly encode identity. These findings suggest that the MEC integrates both the location and identity of landmarks to support navigation.
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Acknowledgements
We thank all colleagues in the Gu laboratory for supporting the work. We also thank Dr. Lorna Role for constructive comments on the manuscript. The contributions of the NIH authors were made as part of their official duties as NIH federal employees, are in compliance with agency policy requirements, and are considered works of the United States Government. However, the findings and conclusions presented in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NIH or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Y.G. discloses support for the research of this work from the Intramural Research Program of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) [grant ZIA NS009415]. All other authors declare no relevant funding.
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Wang, G., Shahid, F., Malone, T.J. et al. The entorhinal spatial map integrates visual identity information of landmarks. Nat Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-72453-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-72453-1
