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Role of Hippocampus in Memory

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The hippocampus, a critical brain structure, plays an essential role in memory processing, particularly in the formation and retrieval of memory. This small, seahorse-shaped region is located within the medial temporal lobe, with one hippocampus in each brain hemisphere. Experimental studies involving lesions in the hippocampi of rats have demonstrated significant impairments in tasks such as object recognition and maze navigation, indicating the hippocampus involvement in both recognition and...

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Ventral hippocampus mediates inter-trial responding in signaled active avoidance.

Cecily R Oleksiak¹, Samantha L Plas¹, Denise Carriaga²

¹Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77845, USA; Texas A&M Institute for Neuroscience, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77845, USA.

Behavioural Brain Research

|May 28, 2024

Summary

The ventral hippocampus (VH) regulates intertrial responses (ITRs) during signaled active avoidance (SAA). VH inactivation reduced ITRs, while activation increased them, highlighting its role in context-dependent avoidance behaviors.

Keywords:

Avoidance Context DREADDs Inter-trial Intervals Ventral hippocampus

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Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Behavioral Neuroscience
Memory Research

Background:

The hippocampus is crucial for memory and contextual processing.
The ventral hippocampus (VH) influences the context-dependence of signaled active avoidance (SAA).
Intertrial responses (ITRs) are unreinforced avoidance behaviors occurring between trials in SAA.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the role of the VH in mediating intertrial responses (ITRs) during SAA.
To determine if VH inactivation or activation affects ITRs.
To explore the associative basis of VH-mediated ITRs.

Main Methods:

Pharmacological inactivation of the VH using muscimol in rats trained on SAA.
Chemogenetic activation of the VH using hM3Dq DREADDs in male and female rats.
Context-US association extinction protocols followed by retrieval tests.

Main Results:

VH inactivation significantly reduced ITRs without affecting avoidance responses.
Chemogenetic VH activation robustly increased ITR vigor, independent of locomotor activity.
VH activation potentiated ITRs in a non-training context, and context extinction did not reliably decrease ITRs.

Conclusions:

The VH plays a significant role in context-dependent ITRs during SAA.
ITRs are not solely mediated by context-US associations.
Further research is needed to elucidate the neural circuits and associative mechanisms underlying VH-mediated ITRs and their relevance to human pathological avoidance.