Robust Conjunctive Item-Place Coding by Hippocampal Neurons Parallels Learning What Happens Where

Previous research indicates a critical role of the hippocampus in memory for events in the context in which they occur. However, studies to date have not provided compelling evidence that hippocampal neurons encode event-context conjunctions directly associated with this kind of learning. Here we re...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of neuroscience 2009-08, Vol.29 (31), p.9918-9929
Main Authors: Komorowski, Robert W, Manns, Joseph R, Eichenbaum, Howard
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Action Potentials
Analysis of Variance
Animals
Discrimination Learning - physiology
Electrodes, Implanted
Environment
Hippocampus - physiology
Male
Memory - physiology
Neurons - physiology
Practice (Psychology)
Rats
Rats, Long-Evans
Reward
Space Perception - physiology
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Summary:Previous research indicates a critical role of the hippocampus in memory for events in the context in which they occur. However, studies to date have not provided compelling evidence that hippocampal neurons encode event-context conjunctions directly associated with this kind of learning. Here we report that, as animals learn different meanings for items in distinct contexts, individual hippocampal neurons develop responses to specific stimuli in the places where they have differential significance. Furthermore, this conjunctive coding evolves in the form of enhanced item-specific responses within a subset of the preexisting spatial representation. These findings support the view that conjunctive representations in the hippocampus underlie the acquisition of context-specific memories.
ISSN:0270-6474
1529-2401
DOI:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1378-09.2009