A flexible hippocampal population code for experience relative to reward.

ABSTRACT: To reinforce rewarding behaviors, events leading up to and following rewards must be remembered. Hippocampal place cell activity spans spatial and non-spatial episodes, but whether hippocampal activity encodes entire sequences of events relative to reward is unknown. Here, to test this possibility, we performed two-photon imaging of hippocampal CA1 as mice navigated virtual environments with changing hidden reward locations. We found that when the reward moved, a subpopulation of neurons updated their firing fields to the same relative position with respect to reward, constructing behavioral timescale sequences spanning the entire task. Over learning, this reward-relative representation became more robust as additional neurons were recruited, and changes in reward-relative firing often pre

SUBMITTER: Sosa M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12229899 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature