Open AccessContext-dependent odor learning requires the anterior olfactory nucleus.
Author(s) -
Max Levinson,
Jacob P. Kolenda,
Gabriella Alexandrou,
Olga Escanilla,
Thomas A. Cleland,
David M. Smith,
Christiane Linster
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
behavioral neuroscience
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.918
H-Index - 140
eISSN - 1939-0084
pISSN - 0735-7044
DOI - 10.1037/bne0000371
Subject(s) - neuroscience , olfactory bulb , psychology , olfactory system , cued speech , amygdala , anterior olfactory nucleus , stimulus (psychology) , odor , olfaction , olfactory tubercle , central nervous system , cognitive psychology
Learning to associate the context in which a stimulus occurs is an important aspect of animal learning. We propose that the association of an olfactory stimulus with its multisensory context is mediated by projections from ventral hippocampus (vHC) networks to the anterior olfactory nucleus (AON). Using a contextually cued olfactory discrimination task, rats were trained to associate 2 olfactory stimuli with different responses depending on visuospatial context. Temporary lesions of the AON or vHC impaired performance on this task. In contrast, such lesions did not impair performance on a noncontextual olfactory discrimination task. Moreover, vHC lesions also impaired performance on an analogous contextually cued texture discrimination task, whereas AON lesions affected only olfactory contextual associations. We describe a distinct role for the AON in olfactory processing and conclude that early olfactory networks such as the olfactory bulb and AON function as multimodal integration networks rather than processing olfactory signals exclusively. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).