bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.03.09.434621; this version posted March 10, 2021. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under aCC-BY 4.0 International license. Hippocampal replay reflects specific past experiences rather than a plan for subsequent choice Anna K. Gillespie1,2*, Daniela A. Astudillo Maya1,2, Eric L. Denovellis1,2,3, Daniel F. Liu1,2, David B. Kastner1,2, Michael E. Coulter1,2, Demetris K. Roumis1,2,3, Uri T. Eden4, Loren M. Frank1,2,3* 1Departments of Physiology and Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California 2Kavli Institute for Fundamental Neuroscience, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California 3Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California 4Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts * Correspondence:
[email protected] (A.K.G.),
[email protected] (L.M.F.) ABSTRACT Executing memory-guided behavior requires both the storage of information about experience and the later recall of that information to inform choices. Awake hippocampal replay, when hippocampal neural ensembles briefly reactivate a representation related to prior experience, has been proposed to critically contribute to these memory-related processes. However, it remains unclear whether awake replay contributes to memory function by promoting the storage of past experiences, by facilitating planning based on an evaluation of those experiences, or by a combination of the two. We designed a dynamic spatial task which promotes replay before a memory-based choice and assessed how the content of replay related to past and future behavior.