A hypothesis of great interest is whether artificially activating a previously formed contextual memory engram while simultaneously delivering foot shocks can result in the creation of a false fear memory for the context in which foot shocks were never delivered.

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Summary• Cells activated previously in the hippocampal DG region can

subsequently serve as a functional CS in a fear-conditioning paradigm when artificially reactivated during the delivery of a unconditioned stimulus (US).

• This paper provides an animal model in which false and genuine memories can be investigated at the memory-engram level.

• This paper allowed them to examine the dynamic interaction between the false and genuine memories at different stages of the memory process.

• Activating neurons in a more spatially and temporally restricted manner may favor the formation of two distinct (false and genuine) memories.