Lever et al.(2009) have made an endeavor to corroborate a prominent theory for the
formation of place cells, the boundaryvector cell model (O'Keefe and Burgess, 1996; Hartley
et al., 2000). They have recorded boundary-responsive cells in the subiculum, and claimed
that these are boundary-vector cells. In this essay I discuss their claim. First, I suggest an
analysis to highlight the boundary-related properties of these cells. Second, I argue with the
authors' discussion about boundaryvector cells in the subiculum being inputs to place cells …

First, Derdikman attempts to reveal the underlying vector properties of BVCs, by converting
environment-centred (allocentric) firing rate maps of selected BVCs from our report, into rat-
centred (egocentric) boundary-to-rat rate plots (Derdikman, 2009, Fig 1A, B). This is an
interesting and helpful contribution to our study. However, his approach estimates a
separate receptive field for each BVC in each environment, which does not sufficiently
constrain the solution to this inverse problem. For instance, in a 60x60cm square a firing …