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Hippocampal contextualization of social rewards in mice

Duarte, Joana Mendes ; Nguyen, Robin ; Kyprou, Marios ; Li, Kaizhen LU orcid ; Milentijevic, Anastasija ; Cerquetella, Carlo ; Forro, Thomas and Ciocchi, Stéphane (2024) In Nature Communications 15.
Abstract
Acquiring and exploiting memories of rewarding experiences is critical for survival. The spatial environment in which a rewarding stimulus is encountered regulates memory retrieval. The ventral hippocampus (vH) has been implicated in contextual memories involving rewarding stimuli such as food, social cues or drugs. Yet, the neuronal representations and circuits underlying contextual memories of socially rewarding stimuli are poorly understood. Here, using in vivo electrophysiological recordings, in vivo one-photon calcium imaging, and optogenetics during a social reward contextual conditioning paradigm in male mice, we show that vH neurons discriminate between contexts with neutral or acquired social reward value. The formation of... (More)
Acquiring and exploiting memories of rewarding experiences is critical for survival. The spatial environment in which a rewarding stimulus is encountered regulates memory retrieval. The ventral hippocampus (vH) has been implicated in contextual memories involving rewarding stimuli such as food, social cues or drugs. Yet, the neuronal representations and circuits underlying contextual memories of socially rewarding stimuli are poorly understood. Here, using in vivo electrophysiological recordings, in vivo one-photon calcium imaging, and optogenetics during a social reward contextual conditioning paradigm in male mice, we show that vH neurons discriminate between contexts with neutral or acquired social reward value. The formation of context-discriminating vH neurons following learning was contingent upon the presence of unconditioned stimuli. Moreover, vH neurons showed distinct contextual representations during the retrieval of social reward compared to fear contextual memories. Finally, optogenetic inhibition of locus coeruleus (LC) projections in the vH selectively disrupted social reward contextual memory by impairing vH contextual representations. Collectively, our findings reveal that the vH integrates contextual and social reward information, with memory encoding of these representations supported by input from the LC. (Less)
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author
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publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
in
Nature Communications
volume
15
article number
9493
publisher
Nature Publishing Group
external identifiers
  • pmid:39489746
  • scopus:85208483927
ISSN
2041-1723
DOI
10.1038/s41467-024-53866-2
language
English
LU publication?
no
additional info
© 2024. The Author(s).
id
9ff9823e-9aab-4190-9eab-f7b6c8076cbe
date added to LUP
2026-09-09 14:05:54
date last changed
2026-09-24 04:47:46
@article{9ff9823e-9aab-4190-9eab-f7b6c8076cbe,
  abstract     = {{Acquiring and exploiting memories of rewarding experiences is critical for survival. The spatial environment in which a rewarding stimulus is encountered regulates memory retrieval. The ventral hippocampus (vH) has been implicated in contextual memories involving rewarding stimuli such as food, social cues or drugs. Yet, the neuronal representations and circuits underlying contextual memories of socially rewarding stimuli are poorly understood. Here, using in vivo electrophysiological recordings, in vivo one-photon calcium imaging, and optogenetics during a social reward contextual conditioning paradigm in male mice, we show that vH neurons discriminate between contexts with neutral or acquired social reward value. The formation of context-discriminating vH neurons following learning was contingent upon the presence of unconditioned stimuli. Moreover, vH neurons showed distinct contextual representations during the retrieval of social reward compared to fear contextual memories. Finally, optogenetic inhibition of locus coeruleus (LC) projections in the vH selectively disrupted social reward contextual memory by impairing vH contextual representations. Collectively, our findings reveal that the vH integrates contextual and social reward information, with memory encoding of these representations supported by input from the LC.}},
  author       = {{Duarte, Joana Mendes and Nguyen, Robin and Kyprou, Marios and Li, Kaizhen and Milentijevic, Anastasija and Cerquetella, Carlo and Forro, Thomas and Ciocchi, Stéphane}},
  issn         = {{2041-1723}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  publisher    = {{Nature Publishing Group}},
  series       = {{Nature Communications}},
  title        = {{Hippocampal contextualization of social rewards in mice}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-53866-2}},
  doi          = {{10.1038/s41467-024-53866-2}},
  volume       = {{15}},
  year         = {{2024}},
}