A ventral CA1 to nucleus accumbens core engram circuit mediates conditioned place preference for cocaine

The importance of neuronal ensembles, termed engram cells, in storing and retrieving memory is increasingly being appreciated, but less is known about how these engram cells operate within neural circuits. Here we tagged engram cells in the ventral CA1 region of the hippocampus (vCA1) and the core of the nucleus accumbens (AcbC) during cocaine conditioned place preference (CPP) training and show that the vCA1 engram projects preferentially to the AcbC and that the engram circuit from the vCA1 to the AcbC mediates memory recall. Direct activation of the AcbC engram while suppressing the vCA1 engram is sufficient for cocaine CPP. The AcbC engram primarily consists of D1 medium spiny neurons, but not D2 medium spiny neurons. The preferential synaptic strengthening of the vCA1→AcbC engram circuit evoked by cocaine conditioning mediates the retrieval of cocaine CPP memory. Our data suggest that the vCA1 engram stores specific contextual information, while the AcbC D1 engram and its downstream network store both cocaine reward and associated contextual information, providing a potential mechanism by which cocaine CPP memory is stored.