{
  "abstract": "Head direction (HD) cells in the anterodorsal thalamic nucleus form the brain’s internal compass, and are often modeled as a ring attractor maintaining azimuth coding by leveraging continuous visual and inertial sensory input. Here, we test how the common experimental preparation of head-fixed animals alters this code. Complete head-fixation that creates vestibular conflict disrupts both unit and population encoding of head direction, while selectively constraining head-on-body movements either in real or virtual reality uniquely impairs HD population activity. More specifically, attractor dynamics are altered in head-restrained male mice during periods of immobility, and a computational model recapitulates this effect by perturbing lateral connectivity among HD neurons. These dynamics recover several hundred milliseconds prior to locomotion onset, suggesting that an efference copy or prediction of a re-afferent signal is necessary to maintain HD network activity during head restraint. More generally, the results indicate that the HD network is a context- and state-dependent predictive estimator, stabilized by forthcoming self-motion signals. The classic ring-attractor models should be revised to integrate context-dependent dynamics with prospective motor signals, offering a more complete account of how the brain’s compass remains stable across both naturalistic and constrained conditions.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 7,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "Alexandr Pak",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-8019-3716"
    },
    {
      "name": "Janna Aarse"
    },
    {
      "name": "Heng Wei Zhu"
    },
    {
      "name": "Jean-Paul Noel",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-5297-3363"
    },
    {
      "name": "Simón Carrillo Segura",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-8287-5158"
    },
    {
      "name": "André A. Fenton"
    },
    {
      "name": "Dora Angelaki"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/bhwr8ah899j1v.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.1038/s41467-026-79031-5",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "bhwr8ah899j1v",
  "issns": [
    "2041-1723"
  ],
  "landing_url": "https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-79031-5",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "licence_label": "CC BY 4.0",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "openalex",
      "2805|Memory and Neural Mechanisms"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7223449913",
  "pdf_url": "https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-79031-5_reference.pdf",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-10-25",
  "publisher": "Springer Science and Business Media LLC",
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/bhwr8ah899j1v.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:17:39Z",
      "native_id": "10.1038/s41467-026-79031-5",
      "source": "crossref",
      "url": "https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-79031-5"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "biology",
      "origin": "openalex:2805|Memory and Neural Mechanisms",
      "subfield": "neuroscience"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Active locomotion predictively rescues head direction attractor dynamics in head-fixed mice",
  "title_text": "Active locomotion predictively rescues head direction attractor dynamics in head-fixed mice",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:17:39Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/bhwr8ah899j1v",
  "venue": "Nature Communications",
  "versions": []
}