Title
Maturation of pyramidal cells in anterior piriform cortex may be sufficient to explain the end of early olfactory learning in rats
Date Issued
01 January 2020
Access level
open access
Resource Type
journal article
Author(s)
Lucion A.B.
Calcagnotto M.E.
Idiart M.A.P.
Universidad Federal de Río Grande del Sur
Publisher(s)
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press
Abstract
Studies have shown that neonate rodents exhibit high ability to learn a preference for novel odors associated with thermo-tactile stimuli that mimics maternal care. Artificial odors paired with vigorous strokes in rat pups younger than 10 postnatal days (P), but not older, rapidly induce an orientation-approximation behavior toward the conditioned odor in a two-choice preference test. The olfactory bulb (OB) and the anterior olfactory cortex (aPC), both modulated by norepinephrine (NE), have been identified as part of a neural circuit supporting this transitory olfactory learning. One possible explanation at the neuronal level for why the odor-stroke pairing induces consistent orientation-approximation behavior in <P10 pups, but not in >P10, is the coincident activation of prior existent neurons in the aPC mediating this behavior. Specifically, odor-stroke conditioning in <P10 pups may activate more mother/nest odor's responsive aPC neurons than in >P10 pups, promoting orientation-approximation behavior in the former but not in the latter. In order to test this hypothesis, we performed in vitro patch-clamp recordings of the aPC pyramidal neurons from rat pups from two age groups (P5-P8 and P14-P17) and built computational models for the OB-aPC neural circuit based on this physiological data. We conditioned the P5-P8 OB-aPC artificial circuit to an odor associated with NE activation (representing the process of maternal odor learning during mother-infant interactions inside the nest) and then evaluated the response of the OB-aPC circuit to the presentation of the conditioned odor. The results show that the number of responsive aPC neurons to the presentation of the conditioned odor in the P14-P17 OB-aPC circuit was lower than in the P5-P8 circuit, suggesting that at P14-P17, the reduced number of responsive neurons to the conditioned (maternal) odor might not be coincident with the responsive neurons for a second conditioned odor.
Start page
20
End page
32
Volume
27
Issue
1
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Psicología (incluye terapias de aprendizaje, habla, visual y otras discapacidades físicas y mentales) Neurociencias
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-85076696720
PubMed ID
Source
Learning &amp; memory (Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.)
ISSN of the container
10720502
Sponsor(s)
E.M.O. is supported by Coordenaçao de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES, Process number: 1608346). G. V.E.P is supported by a doctoral scholarship from Conselho Nacional de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnológico (CNPq, Process number: 141727/2014-4). A.B.L and M.E.C are funded by CNPq (Process number: 465671/2014-4). M.A.I is supported by CNPq (Process number: 423843/2016-8). Other funding that part contributed to the end of this work is provided to G.V.E.P by UCH (Universidad de Ciencias y Humanidades) under research grant “Exploración teórico-experimental neurocomportamental de la formación del apego madre-infante en el desarrollo temprano” (Resolución N° 012-2019-CU-UCH). The authors would like to thank Dr. Aline Villavicencio for her thoughtful and helpful comments on this manuscript.
Sources of information: Directorio de Producción Científica Scopus