Topic: virtual environments

The hippocampus supports flexible navigation by creating context-dependent spatial maps. How these maps emerge during learning and change upon manipulation of the context is not well understood. To elucidate these dynamics, we studied CA1 pyramidal cell (PC) representations in a contextual go/no-go task.We trained water-restricted, head-fixed Thy1-GCaMP6s mice to run on a treadmill in virtual environments, and distinguish two visually distinct corridors by selectively licking in a reward zone in one corridor. We monitored CA1PC activity by two-photon Ca2+ imaging and assessed behavior by measu

We often perceive memories as unified experiences although they comprise a multiplicity of different modalities and features. How the different aspects of a memory are encoded separately or jointly in the brain’s memory systems is not well understood. A key brain structure that has been identified to be involved in processing emotional memories is the ventral hippocampus. In our study we use virtual environments to induce in head-fixed mice the recall of distinct memories of a trace fear conditioning, consisting of a cue-triggered temporal and a context-triggered emotional component. To invest