Topic: navigational variables

Re-exposure to drug-associated spatial contexts often provokes drug craving and relapse. The hippocampus plays a critical role in drug associative learning, with a recent study reporting that drug-context associations were encoded in a specific group of CA1 place cells1. In addition to position (P) coding, both head direction (H) and speed (S) coding in the hippocampus2,3 were shown for encoding a given context. These navigational variables can be encoded conjunctively in place cells to support the acquisition of context-specific memories3,4. Contexts associated with either drug rewards or wit