The study investigates the functional significance of theta-gamma coupling in the hippocampus during the learning of item-context associations. Local field potential (LFP) recordings from the CA3 region of rats were analyzed to examine phase-amplitude cross-frequency coupling (CFC) between theta (4–12 Hz) and gamma (30–100 Hz) oscillations. The results show that as rats learned to associate items with their spatial context, the amplitude of low gamma subband (30–60 Hz) oscillations became more strongly modulated by theta phase, and this coupling remained high during overtraining sessions. The strength of theta-gamma coupling was directly correlated with the increase in performance accuracy during learning. These findings suggest that theta-gamma coupling in the hippocampus plays a crucial role in memory recall and associative learning.The study investigates the functional significance of theta-gamma coupling in the hippocampus during the learning of item-context associations. Local field potential (LFP) recordings from the CA3 region of rats were analyzed to examine phase-amplitude cross-frequency coupling (CFC) between theta (4–12 Hz) and gamma (30–100 Hz) oscillations. The results show that as rats learned to associate items with their spatial context, the amplitude of low gamma subband (30–60 Hz) oscillations became more strongly modulated by theta phase, and this coupling remained high during overtraining sessions. The strength of theta-gamma coupling was directly correlated with the increase in performance accuracy during learning. These findings suggest that theta-gamma coupling in the hippocampus plays a crucial role in memory recall and associative learning.