English: Schematic of phase precession in three place cells. A rat runs left-right and the firing ("spiking") of the cells (shown as colored tick marks) is spatially localized, with the three place fields 9firing locations) overlapping. The local field potential theta rhythm is shown at the bottom with the peaks marked with black lines. Note that the spikes of each cell occur earlier and earlier with respect to the theta peak on each successive cycle - this is phase precession. One consequence of this is that within a single theta cycle (blue rectangle) the cells fire in the same sequence in time as their spatial firing is organized in space: thus converting a spatial code to a temporal one.