Learning enhances representations of taste-guided decisions in the mouse gustatory insular cortex.
Curr Biol
; 34(9): 1880-1892.e5, 2024 05 06.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-38631343
ABSTRACT
Learning to discriminate overlapping gustatory stimuli that predict distinct outcomes-a feat known as discrimination learning-can mean the difference between ingesting a poison or a nutritive meal. Despite the obvious importance of this process, very little is known about the neural basis of taste discrimination learning. In other sensory modalities, this form of learning can be mediated by either the sharpening of sensory representations or the enhanced ability of "decision-making" circuits to interpret sensory information. Given the dual role of the gustatory insular cortex (GC) in encoding both sensory and decision-related variables, this region represents an ideal site for investigating how neural activity changes as animals learn a novel taste discrimination. Here, we present results from experiments relying on two-photon calcium imaging of GC neural activity in mice performing a taste-guided mixture discrimination task. The task allows for the recording of neural activity before and after learning induced by training mice to discriminate increasingly similar pairs of taste mixtures. Single-neuron and population analyses show a time-varying pattern of activity, with early sensory responses emerging after taste delivery and binary, choice-encoding responses emerging later in the delay before a decision is made. Our results demonstrate that, while both sensory and decision-related information is encoded by GC in the context of a taste mixture discrimination task, learning and improved performance are associated with a specific enhancement of decision-related responses.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Taste
/
Discrimination Learning
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Taste Perception
/
Insular Cortex
Limits:
Animals
Language:
En
Journal:
Curr Biol
/
Curr. biol
/
Current biology
Journal subject:
BIOLOGIA
Year:
2024
Document type:
Article
Country of publication: