Septotemporal variations in hippocampal value and outcome processing.

A large body of evidence indicates functional variations along the hippocampal longitudinal axis. To investigate whether and how value and outcome processing vary between the dorsal (DH) and the ventral hippocampus (VH), we examined neuronal activity and inactivation effects of the DH and VH in mice performing probabilistic classical conditioning tasks. Inactivation of either structure disrupts value-dependent anticipatory licking, and value-coding neurons are found in both structures, indicating their involvement in value processing. However, the DH neuronal population increases activity as a function of value, while the VH neuronal population is preferentially responsive to the highest-value sensory cue. Also, signals related to outcome-dependent value learning are stronger in the DH. VH neurons instead show rapid responses to punishment and strongly biased responses to negative prediction error. These findings suggest that the DH faithfully represents the external value landscape, whereas the VH preferentially represents behaviorally relevant, salient features of experienced events.