ArticlePLoS biology2025
Ventral hippocampus to nucleus accumbens shell circuit regulates approach decisions during motivational conflict.
Article in PLoS biology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed.
- The ventral hippocampus: computations, circuits and functions.Nature reviews. Neuroscience · 2026Review
- A ventral hippocampus to nucleus accumbens pathway regulates impulsivity in male but not female rats.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Proximity in mice induced by an auditory-conditioned stimulus.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Transsynaptic neural circuit mapping of ventral hippocampus motivational control systems.Brain structure & function · 2026Article
- Dorsal CA1 projections to nucleus accumbens and lateral septum differentially regulate social and locomotor behavior.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2026Article
- Heterosynaptic Interactions between the Dorsal and Ventral Hippocampus in Individual Medium Spiny Neurons of the Nucleus Accumbens Ventromedial Shell.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Article
- Article
- Affiliation in mice induced by an auditory-conditioned stimulus.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Emotional shaping of spatial encoding along the dorsal ventral axis of the hippocampus.Frontiers in systems neuroscience · 2026Review
- A ventral hippocampus to nucleus accumbens pathway regulates impulsivity.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Hypocretin signaling in the central amygdala drives methamphetamine self-administration in male rats.Neuropharmacology · 2025Article
- Anxiety and Beyond: Diversity in Ventral Hippocampus Circuits and Function.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025Review
- Adult Striatal Neurogenesis-A Comparative Approach Between Pigeons, Mice, Macaques, and Human.The Journal of comparative neurology · 2025Article
- Hippocampal-cortical interactions in the consolidation of social memory.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Heterosynaptic interactions between dorsal and ventral hippocampus in individual medium spiny neurons of the nucleus accumbens ventromedial shell.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Differences in firing patterns along the dorsal-intermediate hippocampal axis in a fixed route during a change in emotional context.Frontiers in systems neuroscience · 2025Article
- Optogenetic stimulation of cell bodies versus axonal terminals generate comparable activity and functional connectivity patterns in the brain.Brain stimulationArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Successful resolution of approach-avoidance conflict (AAC) is fundamentally important for survival, and its dysregulation is a hallmark of many neuropsychiatric disorders, and yet the underlying neural circuit mechanisms are not well elucidated. Converging human and animal research has implicated the anterior/ventral hippocampus (vHPC) as a key node in arbitrating AAC in a region-specific manner. In this study, we sought to target the vHPC CA1 projection pathway to the nucleus accumbens (NAc) to delineate its contribution to AAC decision-making, particularly in the arbitration of learned reward and punishment signals, as well as innate signals. To this end, we used pathway-specific chemogenetics in male and female Long Evans rats to inhibit the NAc shell projecting vHPC CA1 neurons while rats underwent a test in which cues of positive and negative valence were presented concurrently to elicit AAC. Additional behavioral assays of social preference and memory, reward and punishment cue processing, anxiety, and novelty processing were administered to further interrogate the conditions under which the vCA1-NAc shell pathway is recruited. Chemogenetic inhibition of the vCA1-NAc shell circuit resulted in animals exhibiting increased decision-making time and avoidance bias specifically in the face of motivational conflict, as the same behavioral phenotype was absent in separate conditioned cue preference and avoidance tests. vCA1-NAc shell inhibition also led to a reduction in seeking social interaction with a novel rat but did not alter anxiety-like behaviors. The vCA1-NAc shell circuit is therefore critically engaged in biasing decisions to approach in the face of social novelty and approach-avoidance conflict. Dysregulation of this circuit could lead to the precipitation of addictive behaviors in substance abuse, or maladaptive avoidance in situations of approach-avoidance conflict.
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