Beyond sensory representations: Primary olfactory cortex reflexts non-olfactory task-related variables

NOEL FEDERMAN; SEBASTIÁN ROMANO; MACARENA AMIGO DURÁN; ANTONIA MARIN-BURGIN

Chicago, IL

Congreso; Neuroscience 2019; 2019

Society for Neuroscience

Sensory representations are typically thought as neuronal activity patterns that encode physical attributes of the outside world. However, increasing evidence is showing that as animals learn the association between a sensory stimulus and its behavioral relevance, stimulus representation in sensory cortical areas can change. Moreover, internal state as well as animal movements related to a particular task had been shown to modulate cortical activity. To study the dynamics of sensory cortex representations as the behavior evolves, we developed a spatial context-olfactory task in which mice learn that an odor is rewarded when presented in a specific spatial context. We measured the activity of piriform cortex (PCtx) neurons in head fixed mice running in a virtual reality environment. We found that variables related to both sensory and non-sensory aspects of the task (as odor, context, reward, licking, sniff rate and running speed) differently modulate PCtx activity, suggesting that the PCtx may use information from other brain areas to adapt odor processing depending on experience and behavior.