A brain circuit that cements the memory of socially learnt food preferences

How an experience results in a long-term memory has remained unknown. A circuit involving the posteromedial nucleus of the cortical amygdala in the brain is shown to consolidate memories for socially transmitted food preferences in mice using a gene-transcriptional mechanism without contributing to memory acquisition, storage or retrieval. A region of the mouse brain’s cortical amygdala consolidates memory of an odour it could smell on another mouse.