Atypical hippocampal excitatory neurons express and govern object memory

Adrienne I. Kinman, Derek N. Merryweather, Sarah R. Erwin, Regan E. Campbell, Kaitlin E. Sullivan, Larissa Kraus, Margarita Kapustina, Brianna N. Bristow, Mingjia Y. Zhang, Madeline W. Elder, Sydney C. Wood, Ali Tarik, Esther Kim, Joshua Tindall, William Daniels, Mehwish Anwer, Caiying Guo and Mark S. Cembrowski ()
Additional contact information
Adrienne I. Kinman: University of British Columbia
Derek N. Merryweather: University of British Columbia
Sarah R. Erwin: University of British Columbia
Regan E. Campbell: University of British Columbia
Kaitlin E. Sullivan: University of British Columbia
Larissa Kraus: University of British Columbia
Margarita Kapustina: University of British Columbia
Brianna N. Bristow: University of British Columbia
Mingjia Y. Zhang: University of British Columbia
Madeline W. Elder: University of British Columbia
Sydney C. Wood: University of British Columbia
Ali Tarik: University of British Columbia
Esther Kim: University of British Columbia
Joshua Tindall: University of British Columbia
William Daniels: University of British Columbia
Mehwish Anwer: University of British Columbia
Caiying Guo: Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Mark S. Cembrowski: University of British Columbia

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-19

Abstract: Abstract Classically, pyramidal cells of the hippocampus are viewed as flexibly representing spatial and non-spatial information. Recent work has illustrated distinct types of hippocampal excitatory neurons, suggesting that hippocampal representations and functions may be constrained and interpreted by these underlying cell-type identities. In mice, here we reveal a non-pyramidal excitatory neuron type — the “ovoid” neuron — that is spatially adjacent to subiculum pyramidal cells but differs in gene expression, electrophysiology, morphology, and connectivity. Functionally, novel object encounters drive sustained ovoid neuron activity, whereas familiar objects fail to drive activity even months after single-trial learning. Silencing ovoid neurons prevents non-spatial object learning but leaves spatial learning intact, and activating ovoid neurons toggles novel-object seeking to familiar-object seeking. Such function is doubly dissociable from pyramidal neurons, wherein manipulation of pyramidal cells affects spatial assays but not non-spatial learning. Ovoid neurons of the subiculum thus illustrate selective cell-type-specific control of non-spatial memory and behavioral preference.

Date: 2025
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-56260-8 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-56260-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-56260-8

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().