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Authors & Affiliations
Camila Alexia Savarelli Balsamo, Manuel Esteban Vila-Martín, Anna Teruel-Sanchis, Lorena Jiménez-Romero, María Sancho-Alonso, Joana Martínez-Ricós, Vicent Teruel-Martí, Enrique Lanuza
Abstract
Social memory plays a crucial role in the behavioural dynamics of gregarious animals, facilitating interaction, recognition, and appropriate social responses among conspecifics. Specifically, male mice demarcate their territory using urine marks, rich in pheromonal cues, allowing females to discern territorial ownership—a critical factor in mate selection. This recognition process forms distinct engrams, or biological memory traces, for individual conspecifics. Pheromonal signals are primarily processed by the vomeronasal organ (VNO), transmitted through the accessory olfactory bulb (AOB), and then relayed to the posteromedial cortical nucleus of the amygdala (PMCo). Notably, the PMCo maintains robust bidirectional links with the vCA1 nucleus of the hippocampus, a crucial site for the consolidation of social memories. However, the integration mechanisms of vomeronasal inputs within hippocampal social memory engrams remain elusive. Our study aims to delineate the neural circuitry involved in processing social stimuli by identifying the specific vomeronasal and hippocampal regions exhibiting differential activation. We employ two distinct behavioural paradigms coupled with c-Fos activation quantification to demonstrate the neural response patterns, particularly in the vCA1, to social and vomeronasal stimuli. Furthermore, we seek to elucidate the response dynamics of the vCA1 neuronal population to pheromonal cues by examining the electrophysiological patterns elicited by both familiar and unfamiliar conspecifics. This research endeavours to unravel the complex neural substrates underpinning social memory and pheromonal perception, enriching the understanding of social cognition mechanisms. Funding: Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, PID2022-141733NB-I00/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/ FEDER, UE. CASV is an “Atracció al talent” program predoctoral fellow at the University of Valencia.