Acquisition of non-olfactory encoding improves odour discrimination in olfactory cortex

Noel Federman (), Sebastián A. Romano (), Macarena Amigo-Duran, Lucca Salomon and Antonia Marin-Burgin ()
Additional contact information
Noel Federman: Instituto de Investigación en Biomedicina de Buenos Aires (IBioBA)-CONICET-Partner Institute of the Max Planck Society, Godoy Cruz 2390
Sebastián A. Romano: Instituto de Investigación en Biomedicina de Buenos Aires (IBioBA)-CONICET-Partner Institute of the Max Planck Society, Godoy Cruz 2390
Macarena Amigo-Duran: Instituto de Investigación en Biomedicina de Buenos Aires (IBioBA)-CONICET-Partner Institute of the Max Planck Society, Godoy Cruz 2390
Lucca Salomon: Instituto de Investigación en Biomedicina de Buenos Aires (IBioBA)-CONICET-Partner Institute of the Max Planck Society, Godoy Cruz 2390
Antonia Marin-Burgin: Instituto de Investigación en Biomedicina de Buenos Aires (IBioBA)-CONICET-Partner Institute of the Max Planck Society, Godoy Cruz 2390

Nature Communications, 2024, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-19

Abstract: Abstract Olfaction is influenced by contextual factors, past experiences, and the animal’s internal state. Whether this information is integrated at the initial stages of cortical odour processing is not known, nor how these signals may influence odour encoding. Here we revealed multiple and diverse non-olfactory responses in the primary olfactory (piriform) cortex (PCx), which dynamically enhance PCx odour discrimination according to behavioural demands. We performed recordings of PCx neurons from mice trained in a virtual reality task to associate odours with visual contexts to obtain a reward. We found that learning shifts PCx activity from encoding solely odours to a regime in which positional, contextual, and associative responses emerge on odour-responsive neurons that become mixed-selective. The modulation of PCx activity by these non-olfactory signals was dynamic, improving odour decoding during task engagement and in rewarded contexts. This improvement relied on the acquired mixed-selectivity, demonstrating how integrating extra-sensory inputs in sensory cortices can enhance sensory processing while encoding the behavioural relevance of stimuli.

Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-49897-4 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:15:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-024-49897-4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-49897-4

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().