Different encoding of reward location in dorsal and ventral hippocampus

Abstract

Hippocampal neurons encode a cognitive map for spatial navigation. When they fire at specific locations in the environment, they are known as place cells. In the dorsal hippocampus place cells accumulate at current navigational goals, such as learned reward locations. In the intermediate-to-ventral hippocampus (here collectively referred to as ventral hippocampus), neurons fire across larger place fields and regulate reward-seeking behavior, but little is known about their involvement in reward-directed navigation. Here, we compared the encoding of learned reward locations in the dorsal and ventral hippocampus during spatial navigation. We used calcium imaging with a head-mounted microscope to track the activity of CA1 cells over multiple days during which mice learned different reward locations. In dorsal CA1 (dCA1), the overall number of active place cells increased in anticipation of reward but the recruited cells changed with the reward location. In ventral CA1 (vCA1), the activity of the same cells anticipated the reward locations. Our results support a model in which the dCA1 cognitive map incorporates a changing population of cells to encode reward proximity through increased population activity, while the vCA1 provides a reward-predictive code in the activity of a specific subpopulation of cells. Both of these location-invariant codes persisted over time, and together they provide a dual hippocampal reward-location code, assisting goal-directed navigation.