Ventral hippocampus and the contextual control of Pavlovian and instrumental behaviors

Moriarty SK(1), Todd TP(2), Parkes SL(3).

Author information:
(1)Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of
Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI, United States of America. Electronic
address: .
(2)Department of Psychological Science, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT,
United States of America; Neuroscience Graduate Program, University of Vermont,
Burlington, VT, United States of America; Cellular, Molecular, and Biomedical
Sciences Doctoral Program, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, United States
of America.
(3)Université de Bordeaux, CNRS, INCIA, UMR 5287, F-33000 Bordeaux, France.
Electronic address: .

The purpose of the present review is to consider and integrate research that has
examined the role of the ventral hippocampus (VH) in the contextual regulation
of both Pavlovian and instrumental behaviors. To do so, we selectively review
research on the role of the VH in the extinction and renewal of Pavlovian fear
conditioning, as well as its contribution to the learning and performance of
appetitive instrumental responding. We emphasize that « contexts » can function in
several ways to control behavior. Our review suggests that, across both
paradigms, the VH contributes to several forms of contextual regulation. The
evidence further indicates that these context effects depend on interactions
between the VH and medial prefrontal cortex, suggesting a shared
hippocampal-prefrontal circuit that supports contextual control. We also
consider how these functions relate to broader hippocampal organization, drawing
on evidence that while the dorsal hippocampus preferentially encodes discrete
spatial information, the VH may be especially important for integrating salient
contextual information across experience, particularly under conditions of
ambiguity. Together, the evidence suggests that the VH plays a common and
essential role in enabling contextual information to guide both Pavlovian and
instrumental behaviors.

Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier Inc.

DOI: 10.1016/j.nlm.2026.108181
PMID: 42214549

Conflict of interest statement: Declaration of competing interest The authors
declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal
relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this
paper.

Auteurs Bordeaux Neurocampus