Experimental evidence for a functional differentiation along the longitudinal axis of the hippocampus (hpc) exist, however, its extent and precise nature remains unclear. Several lesion studies have suggested that the septal (dorsal) hpc is of greater importance in spatial learning, while the temporal (ventral) hpc is involved in non-spatial memory. However, temporal, but not septal, hpc-spared rats show new spatial learning capability in a watermaze, following a preoperative training protocol that required the animals to dwell over a spatial location before the platform became available (Martin and de Hoz, SFN 2003). In the present study we explore whether this pattern of results can be extended to a spatial appetitive task, the place preference task (Rossier et al., 2000), in which rats were required to dwell in an unmarked but fixed location of a dry land maze before receiving a food reward. The task was adapted to incorporate, like the watermaze study, a reminder within the testing protocol. Food depri...