Motivational states activate distinct hippocampal representations to guide goal-directed behaviors.

ABSTRACT: Adaptive behaviors are guided by motivation and memory. Motivational states specify goals, and memory can inform motivated behavior by providing detailed records of past experiences when goals were obtained. These 2 fundamental processes interact to guide animals to biologically relevant targets, but the neuronal mechanisms that integrate them remain unknown. To investigate these mechanisms, we recorded unit activity from the same population of hippocampal neurons as rats performed identical tasks while either food or water deprived. We compared the influence of motivational state (hunger and thirst), memory demand, and spatial behavior in 2 tasks: hippocampus-dependent contextual memory retrieval and hippocampus-independent random foraging. We found that: (i) hippocampal coding was most s

SUBMITTER: Kennedy PJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2705558 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature