Spatial coding dysfunction and network instability in the aging medial entorhinal cortex

Across species, spatial memory declines with age, possibly reflecting altered hippocampal and medial entorhinal cortex (MEC) function. However, the integrity of cellular and network-level spatial coding in aged MEC is unknown. Here, we leveraged in vivo electrophysiology to assess MEC function in young, middle-aged, and aged mice navigating virtual environments. In aged grid cells, we observed impaired stabilization of context-specific spatial firing, correlated with spatial memory deficits. Additionally, aged grid networks shifted firing patterns often, but with poor alignment to context changes. Aged spatial firing was also unstable in an unchanging environment. In these same mice, we identified 458 genes differentially expressed with age in MEC, 61 of which had expression correlated with spatial coding quality. These genes were interneuron-enriched and related to synaptic plasticity, notably including a perineuronal net component. Together, these findings identify coordinated transcr..., This dataset comprises the pre-processed in vivo electrophysiological data, including both individual neuron spiking and local field potential (LFP) data, and virtual-reality behavior data from each recording session analyzed and presented in the affiliated manuscript. In brief, electrophysiology data were collected using Neuropixels 1.0 silicon probes and SpikeGLX software, followed by offline spike sorting using Kilosort 2.5 and curation in Phy 2.0 integrated using Jennifer Colonell’s fork of the Allen Institute for Brain Science ecephys library, which also produces waveform quality metrics for each neuron. Behavioral data were saved using Unity 3D software and synchronized with pre-processed electrophysiological data using custom MATLAB code. LFP data for each session after electrophysiologic data pre-processing and synchronization with VR timestamps is also included. 
In addition, this dataset includes a set of pre-processed immunohistochemical images and a .csv file resulting ..., , # Spatial coding dysfunction and network instability in the aging medial entorhinal cortex

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.8cz8w9h0d](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.8cz8w9h0d)

## Description of the data and file structure

This dataset comprises the pre-processed *in vivo* electrophysiological data, including both individual neuron spiking and local field potential (LFP) power data, and virtual-reality behavior data from each recording session analyzed and presented in the affiliated manuscript. In brief, electrophysiology data were collected using Neuropixels 1.0 silicon probes and SpikeGLX software, followed by offline spike sorting using Kilosort 2.5 and curation in Phy 2.0 integrated using Jennifer Colonell’s fork of the Allen Institute for Brain Science ecephys library. Behavioral data were saved using Unity 3D software and synchronized with pre-processed electrophysiological data using custom MATLAB code. For each session from each mouse, this generated a .mat file of synchronized...,