Nonlinear hippocampal coding of the pair-bonded partner in prairie voles

Jiayan Liu; Kisa Watanabe; Miyuki Miyano; Mikuru Kudara; Eriko Kato-Ishikura; Sena Iijima; Kinjiro Takeda; Ryosuke Koike; Takeshi Nagahiro; Kotaro Yamashiro; Larry J. Young; Yuji Ikegaya; Nobuyoshi Matsumoto

doi:10.1101/2025.10.10.681589

NeurosciencebioRxivOct 10, 2025

Preprint

Nonlinear hippocampal coding of the pair-bonded partner in prairie voles

Jiayan Liu iD, Kisa Watanabe iD, Miyuki Miyano iD, Mikuru Kudara iD, Eriko Kato-Ishikura, Sena Iijima iD, Kinjiro Takeda iD, Ryosuke Koike iD, Takeshi Nagahiro iD, Kotaro Yamashiro iD, Larry J. Young iD, Yuji Ikegaya iD, Nobuyoshi Matsumoto iD

Abstract

Neural representation of specific opposite-sex partners remains largely unexplored. Using monogamous prairie voles, we demonstrated that partner preference required the ventral hippocampus, in which 3-4 Hz oscillations were enhanced following partner interaction. We identified ventral hippocampal neurons responding selectively to the pair-bonded partner and stranger, which encoded identity-related information in a nonlinear manner, shedding light upon how mammalian brains create distinct neural representations of romantic opposite-sex partners.

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