Fig. 4: Fat- and sugar-responsive dHPC neurons control nutrient-specific episodic spatial memory.
a, Schematic of nutrient-driven location memory task to assess the necessity of nutrient-responsive dHPC neurons in food-related reference memory. b, Discrimination of sugar quadrant in dHPCSugar mice without viral-mediated ablation (n = 10 mice per group, repeated measure (RM) one-way ANOVA with Dunnett post hoc analysis). c, Discrimination of sugar quadrant in dHPCSugar mice with viral-mediated ablation (n = 7 mice per group, RM one-way ANOVA with Dunnett post hoc analysis). d, Discrimination of fat quadrant in dHPCFat mice without viral-mediated ablation (n = 10 mice per group, RM one-way ANOVA with Dunnett post hoc analysis). e, Discrimination of fat quadrant in dHPCFat mice with viral-mediated ablation (n = 7 mice per group, RM one-way ANOVA with Dunnett post hoc analysis). f, Schematic of nutrient-driven location memory task to assess whether chemogenetic stimulation of nutrient-responsive dHPC neurons can promote nutrient-specific recall. g, Discrimination of sugar quadrant in response to saline and CNO in dHPCSugar mice expressing viral-mediated hM3Dq or control (n = 6 for SugarCon, n = 8 for SugarGq, paired two-tailed t-test). h, Discrimination of fat quadrant in response to saline and CNO in dHPCFat mice expressing viral-mediated hM3Dq or control (n = 6 for FatCon, n = 7 for FatGq, paired two-tailed t-test). i, Schematic of two-bottle choice test in which bottle positions were swapped every 10 min to assess the importance of location memory on nutrient preference. j, Fat licking in dHPCFat mice with and without ablation (n = 6 for FatCon, n = 8 for FatCasp3, two-way ANOVA with Holm–Sidak post hoc analysis). k, Sugar solution licking in dHPCSugar mice with and without viral-mediated ablation (n = 6 for SugarCon, n = 5 for SugarCasp3, two-way ANOVA with Holm–Sidak post hoc analysis). Data are presented as mean ± s.e.m. Elements of a, f, and i were created in Biorender.
