When neuroinhibitor muscimol is injected into the dorsal CA1 region of the hippocampus, the subject mouse becomes unable to distinguish the presented mice. However, when the same experiment was performed while presenting odor stimuli unrelated to social activity, this phenomenon was not observed.

Neurons in the dorsal CA1 region of the hippocampus were found to be responsible for distinguishing between two mice within the reward category or between two mice in the non-reward category.