Selective suppression of hippocampal ripples impairs spatial memory.

Sharp wave-ripple (SPW-R) complexes in the hippocampus-entorhinal cortex are believed to be important for transferring labile memories from the hippocampus to the neocortex for long-term storage. We found that selective elimination of SPW-Rs during post-training consolidation periods resulted in performance impairment in rats trained on a hippocampus-dependent spatial memory task. Our results provide evidence for a prominent role of hippocampal SPW-Rs in memory consolidation.