The positive or negative value (valence) of past experiences is normally integrated into neuronal circuits that encode episodic memories and plays an important role in guiding behavior. Here, we show, using mouse behavioral models, that glutamatergic afferents from the ventral tegmental area to the dorsal hippocampus (VTA→DH) signal negative valence to memory circuits, leading to the formation of fear-inducing context memories and to contextspecific reinstatement of fear. To a lesser extent, these projections also contributed to opioidinduced place preference, suggesting a role in signaling positive valence as well, and thus a lack of dedicated polarity. Manipulations of VTA terminal activity were more effective in females and paralleled by sex differences in glutamatergic signaling. By prioritizing retrieval of negative and positive over neutral memories, the VTA→DH circuit can facilitate the selection of adaptive behaviors when current and past experiences are valence congruent.

In susceptible individuals, memories of stressful experiences can give rise to debilitating socio-affective symptoms. This occurs even when the ability to retrieve such memories is limited, as seen in patients suffering from traumatic amnesia. We therefore hypothesized that the encoding, rather than retrieval, mechanisms of stress-related memories underlie their impact on social and emotional behavior. To test this hypothesis, we used combinations of stress-enhanced and state-dependent fear conditioning, which engage different encoding mechanisms for the formation of stress-related memories. We found that the encoding of stress-enhanced state-dependent memories robustly and sex specifically impairs sociability in male mice and disrupts the asymmetry of dentate gyrus (DG)/CA3 activity accompanying social interactions. These deficits were restored by chemogenetic inactivation of oxytocin receptor-positive interneurons localized in the hilus (Oxtr-HI), and by inactivation of dorsohippocampal efferents to the caudal lateral septum. Together, our data suggest that disrupted patterning of dorsohippocampal DG/CA3 activity underlies stress-induced sociability deficits, and that Oxtr-HI can be a cellular target for improving these deficits.

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With the many papers published in the field of pediatric neurosurgery, it is often difficult to recognize those that have the most impact on future papers, i.e., citable papers. However, citation analysis allows one to better understand which papers are impacting the field the most. Therefore, the current study aimed to evaluate this literature. The Journal Citation Report database was searched for publications with the words “pediatric neurosurgery” or “pediatric neuro” in the title. Using the Web of Science Core Collection, the top 100 journal articles in pediatric neurosurgery from the selected journals were identified and citation analysis was used to identify the most impactful articles. A search was performed on Web of Science Core Collection by searching for each journal under “Publication Name” and using the Boolean “OR” function to separate fields. The results were ordered by the “Times Cited” category, which provided a list of all the articles from the eight journals appearing in the most cited order. The timeline used was from 1976 to 2021. The top 100 most cited articles were extracted from this list for analysis. The following variables were collected from each scientific article: publication journal, impact factor of journal, title, number of citations, year and month of publication, and type of article. Eight journals were identified on the basis of our search criteria and the articles were sorted by most cited; 1609 pediatric neurosurgery journal articles were screened to select the 100 most cited since 1976. This compilation could serve to help clinicians and researchers to familiarize themselves with the journal articles included in terms of study type, study field, journal of publication, and recurring authors.