Fig. 7: Enhanced conjunctive coding of space, velocity, and licking in NAc-projecting neurons.

a, b Conjunctive coding of space and velocity. a Venn diagrams of dHPC^- (left) and dHPC^→NAc (right) place cells and their overlaps with negatively (ocher) and positively (purple) tuned speed cells. Shown are absolute numbers of neurons classified. b Proportions of dHPC^- (green) and dHPC^→NAc (red) place cells (fill) and non-place cells (no fill) that are also significantly speed-modulated. A larger proportion of place cells is speed-inhibited compared to non-place cells (dHPC^-: χ²(1, 4928) = 522.71, P < 0.001; dHPC^→NAc: χ²(1, 444) = 75.02, P < 0.001). dHPC^→NAc place cells also have a higher proportion of speed-inhibited cells than dHPC^- place cells (χ²(1, 1750) = 10.219, P = 0.0014). Speed-excited neurons are overrepresented in non-place cells compared to place cells (dHPC^-: χ²(1, 4928) = 22.048, P < 0.001; dHPC^→NAc: χ²(1, 444) = 10.497, P = 0.0012). dHPC^→NAc non-place cells also have a higher proportion of speed-excited cells than dHPC^- non-place cells (χ²(1, 3622) = 6.223, P = 0.0126). c, d Conjunctive coding of space and licking. c Event-triggered average calcium traces for dHPC^- (green) and dHPC^→NAc (red) place cells (left) and non-place cells (right). d Proportions of lick-excited neurons are significantly enriched in dHPC^- (χ²(1, 4928) = 114.515, P < 0.001) and dHPC^→NAc (χ²(1, 444) = 23.248, P < 0.001) place cells compared to non-place cells. The proportion of dHPC^→NAc lick-excited place cells is also higher than the proportion of dHPC^- lick-excited place cells (χ²(1, 1750) = 9.442, P = 0.0021). e, f Conjunctive coding of velocity and licking. e Histogram of lick-excited (no fill) and lick-inhibited (fill) cells’ velocity correlations (green: dHPC^-; red: dHPC^→NAc). f Proportions of lick-excited (left) and lick-inhibited (right) cells among speed-inhibited (no fill), non-speed-modulated (fill) and speed-excited (fill, black stroke) dHPC^- (green) and dHPC^→NAc (red) cells. Proportions of lick-excited cells are overrepresented in speed-inhibited cells (dHPC^-: χ²(2, 4928) = 100.484, P < 0.001; dHPC^→NAc: χ²(2, 444) = 27.608, P < 0.001). Lick-excited neurons are further enriched in speed-inhibited dHPC^→NAc neurons compared to dHPC^- neurons (χ²(1, 830) = 6.564, P = 0.0104). Proportions of lick-inhibited cells are overrepresented in speed-excited cells (dHPC^-: χ²(2, 4928) = 290.832, P < 0.001; dHPC^→NAc: χ²(2, 444) = 18.825, P < 0.001). All statistical tests performed are chi-squared tests. All data are presented as mean ± SEM. ns not significant, *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.