Modulation of cortical representations of sensory and contextual information underlies aversive associative learning.
Cell Rep
; 43(9): 114672, 2024 Aug 27.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-39196779
ABSTRACT
Cortical neurons encode both sensory and contextual information, yet it remains unclear how experiences modulate these cortical representations. Here, we demonstrate that trace eyeblink conditioning (TEC), an aversive associative-learning paradigm linking conditioned (CS) with unconditioned stimuli (US), finely tunes cortical coding at both population and single-neuron levels. Initially, we show that the primary somatosensory cortex (S1) is necessary for TEC acquisition, as evidenced by local muscimol administration. At the population level, TEC enhances activity in a small subset (â¼20%) of CS- or US-responsive primary neurons (rPNs) while diminishing activity in non-rPNs, including locomotion-tuned or unresponsive PNs. Crucially, TEC learning modulates the encoding of sensory versus contextual information in single rPNs CS-responsive neurons become less responsive, while US-responsive neurons gain responses to CS. Moreover, we find that the cholinergic pathway, via nicotinic receptors, underlies TEC-induced modulations. These findings suggest that experiences dynamically tune cortical representations through cholinergic pathways.
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Language:
En
Journal:
Cell Rep
Year:
2024
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Estados Unidos
Publication country:
EEUU
/
ESTADOS UNIDOS
/
ESTADOS UNIDOS DA AMERICA
/
EUA
/
UNITED STATES
/
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
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US
/
USA