Beyond sensory representations: primary olfactory cortex reflects non-olfactory task-related variables

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

Chicago, IL

Congreso; Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting; 2019

Society for Neuroscience

Sensory representation had been largely thought as xed brain con gurations of the outside world. However, in- creasing evidence is showing that as animals learn the as- sociation 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 how is the dynamics of sensory cortex representations as the behav- ior evolves, we developed a spatial context-olfactory task in which mice learn that an odor is rewarded when pre- sented in a speci c spatial context. We measured the ac- tivity of piriform cortex (PC) neurons in head xed mice running in a virtual reality environment. We found that variables related to both sensory and non-sensory as- pects of the task (as odor, context, reward, licking, sni rate and running speed) di erently modulate PC activity, suggesting that the PC may use information from other brain areas to adapt odor processing depending on expe- rience and behavior.