Fig. 8: Ventral subiculum inactivation increases the effect of reward on schema cell formation in the OFC during learning of a new problem.

a, Accuracy of decoding position across all epochs by individual schema cells, where → denotes chance decoding of 12.5%. One-way ANOVA showed that accuracy was similar for decoding within and across mazes for neurons in control (F_(1,518) = 0.12, P = 0.73, \({{{\eta }}}_{{\rm{p}}}^{2}\) = 2.3 × 10⁻⁴) and GtACR2 rats (F_(1,724) = 3.0, P = 0.083, \({{{\eta }}}_{{\rm{p}}}^{2}\) = 0.0017), whereas inactivation increased accuracy of decoding (within: F_(1,1121) = 12.48, P = 4.0 × 10⁻⁴, \({{{\eta }}}_{{\rm{p}}}^{2}\) = 0.011; across: F_(1,1121) = 36.9, P = 1.7 × 10⁻⁹, \({{{\eta }}}_{{\rm{p}}}^{2}\) = 0.032). b, Accuracy of decoding position within each epoch by ensembles of schema cells, where dotted line denotes chance decoding of 12.5%. One-way ANOVA showed thta accuracy was greater within than across mazes for neurons in control (F_(1,16) = 12.1, P = 3.1 × 10⁻⁴, \({{{\eta }}}_{{\rm{p}}}^{2}\) = 0.43) but not GtACR2 rats (F_(1,16) = 2.1, P = 0.17, \({{{\eta }}}_{{\rm{p}}}^{2}\) = 0.11), and inactivation caused better decoding across (F_(1,16) = 23.4, P = 2.0 × 10⁻⁴, \({{{\eta }}}_{{\rm{p}}}^{2}\) = 0.59) but not within the maze (F_(1,16) = 0.52, P = 0.48, \({{{\eta }}}_{{\rm{p}}}^{2}\) = 0.032). c–e, Percentage of schema neurons with correlated activity across mazes affected by shuffling (as in Fig. 5a–c) to disrupt information related to epoch (c), reward (d) or position (e). No significant differences between the two groups were observed for either epoch or position (χ² < 3.3, P > 0.067, d.f. = 1; χ² test), whereas the influence of reward grew modestly but significantly faster with inactivation (overall schema: χ² = 17.1, P = 3.6 × 10⁻⁵; days 1–2: χ² = 2.2, P = 0.14; days 3–10: χ² = 8.9, P = 0.0028; d.f. = 1; χ² test). f, Venn diagrams summarizing data from c–e, showing the fraction of schema neurons recorded in control and GtACR2 sessions that were affected by shuffling of information related to epoch (light gray), reward (light green) and position (dark gray) as in Fig. 5d. Sizes of circles are normalized to the total number of neurons recorded in each group, averaged across days (see Extended Data Fig. 6 for the same illustration by day). The proportions in each category and overlap between categories were affected by inactivation, with an increase in those affected by epoch and reward (χ² = 9.8; P = 0.0018; d.f. = 1; χ² test) and a corresponding decrease in those affected by epoch only (χ² = 18.4; P = 1.8 × 10⁻⁵; d.f. = 1; χ² test). The error bars are the s.e.m. (***P < 0.001, **P < 0.01; Extended Data Figs. 6 and 7 and Supplementary Figs. 10–12).