The intermediate hippocampus integrates shock-observation and spatial information during observational fear memory in male rats
Abstract
Learning where danger lurks by observing others requires linking another individual’s distress to one’s own representation of space. How the hippocampus implements this mapping is unknown. We recorded Neuropixels activity across the dorsal, intermediate and ventral hippocampus of male rats during contextual fear learning by observation, subsequent rest and recall. Observers showed increased immobility in the context where they had witnessed a conspecific receive footshocks, with substantial inter-individual variability. Pyramidal neurons were recruited by shock observation, with enriched shock-excited cells in the intermediate hippocampus. In the dorsal and intermediate hippocampus, shock-observation responses scaled with baseline place-field firing, revealing a gain-like conjunctive code between observed distress and observer’s position. Following learning, shock-context spatial representations were selectively stabilized in the intermediate hippocampus, and post-learning sharp-wave ripples preferentially reactivated shock-context ensembles, especially in animals expressing contextual freezing. These findings identify candidate hippocampal mechanisms by which socially acquired threat information are mapped onto the observer’s spatial representation and consolidated into memory.
Related
- INFORME: coupling information-theoretic experimental design with nonlinear mixed-effects modeling for efficient observation scheduling
- A blastema in sea star larvae integrates wound signaling to drive regeneration-specific and developmental gene expression patterns.
- The SPL8‐YAB3/TCP19 module integrates transcriptional and protein–protein regulatory mechanisms to orchestrate anther development in Arabidopsis
- Quantitative spatial connectomics of liver reveals a partially exposed sympathetic network that integrates multiple cell types across the portal tract
- The large conjugative plasmid pAB3 integrates into the chromosome of Acinetobacter baumannii ATCC 17978
BibTeX
@article{linde2026intermediate,
title = {{The intermediate hippocampus integrates shock-observation and spatial information during observational fear memory in male rats}},
author = {Frédéric Michon Linde and Valeria Gazzola and Christian Keysers},
journal = {Nature Communications},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1038/s41467-026-78482-0},
url = {https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-78482-0},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - The intermediate hippocampus integrates shock-observation and spatial information during observational fear memory in male rats
AU - Frédéric Michon Linde
AU - Valeria Gazzola
AU - Christian Keysers
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/26
JO - Nature Communications
DO - 10.1038/s41467-026-78482-0
UR - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-78482-0
AB - Learning where danger lurks by observing others requires linking another individual’s distress to one’s own representation of space. How the hippocampus implements this mapping is unknown. We recorded Neuropixels activity across the dorsal, intermediate and ventral hippocampus of male rats during contextual fear learning by observation, subsequent rest and recall. Observers showed increased immobility in the context where they had witnessed a conspecific receive footshocks, with substantial inter-individual variability. Pyramidal neurons were recruited by shock observation, with enriched shock-excited cells in the intermediate hippocampus. In the dorsal and intermediate hippocampus, shock-observation responses scaled with baseline place-field firing, revealing a gain-like conjunctive code between observed distress and observer’s position. Following learning, shock-context spatial representations were selectively stabilized in the intermediate hippocampus, and post-learning sharp-wave ripples preferentially reactivated shock-context ensembles, especially in animals expressing contextual freezing. These findings identify candidate hippocampal mechanisms by which socially acquired threat information are mapped onto the observer’s spatial representation and consolidated into memory.
SN - 2041-1723
ER -