Data for: Hippocampal place codes are gated by behavioral engagement

As animals explore an environment, the hippocampus is thought to automatically form and maintain a place code by combining sensory and self-motion signals. Instead, we observed an extensive degradation of the place code when mice voluntarily disengaged from a virtual-navigation task, remarkably even as they continued to traverse the identical environment. Internal states therefore can strongly gate spatial maps and reorganize hippocampal activity even without sensory and self-motion changes. Methods Mice were trained in virtual reality to navigate a two meter-long linear track that repeated in a circular topology. Mice received liquid rewards if they licked a spout in a 20-cm long reward zone, whereas licks in other parts of the track were unrewarded. We measured the activity of hundreds of CA1 neurons using cellular-resolution calcium imaging with jRGECO1a or jGCaMP8m.