scholarly journals Associative learning changes cross-modal representations in the gustatory cortex

eLife ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberto Vincis ◽  
Alfredo Fontanini
Keyword(s):  
Associative Learning ◽  
Neural Representation ◽  
Sensory Cortex ◽  
Gustatory Cortex ◽  
Primary Sensory Cortex ◽  
Sensory Modalities ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Olfactory Stimuli ◽  
Sensory Cortices ◽  
Single Modality

A growing body of literature has demonstrated that primary sensory cortices are not exclusively unimodal, but can respond to stimuli of different sensory modalities. However, several questions concerning the neural representation of cross-modal stimuli remain open. Indeed, it is poorly understood if cross-modal stimuli evoke unique or overlapping representations in a primary sensory cortex and whether learning can modulate these representations. Here we recorded single unit responses to auditory, visual, somatosensory, and olfactory stimuli in the gustatory cortex (GC) of alert rats before and after associative learning. We found that, in untrained rats, the majority of GC neurons were modulated by a single modality. Upon learning, both prevalence of cross-modal responsive neurons and their breadth of tuning increased, leading to a greater overlap of representations. Altogether, our results show that the gustatory cortex represents cross-modal stimuli according to their sensory identity, and that learning changes the overlap of cross-modal representations.

scholarly journals Transcranial theta-burst stimulation of primary sensory cortex attenuates somatosensory threat memory in humans

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karita E Ojala ◽  
Matthias Staib ◽  
Samuel Gerster ◽  
Christian C Ruff ◽  
Dominik R Bach
Keyword(s):  
Sensory Cortex ◽  
Initial Stimulus ◽  
Non Invasive ◽  
Healthy Humans ◽  
Primary Sensory Cortex ◽  
Complex Stimuli ◽  
Sensory Cortices ◽  
Theta Burst ◽  
Stimulation Of

Sensory cortices are required for learning to discriminate complex stimuli that predict threat from those that predict safety in rodents. Yet, sensory cortices may not be needed to learn threat associations to simple stimuli. It is unknown whether these findings apply in humans. Here, we investigated the role of primary sensory cortex in discriminative threat conditioning with simple and complex somatosensory conditioned stimuli (CS) in healthy humans. Immediately before conditioning, participants received continuous theta-burst transcranial magnetic stimulation (cTBS) to primary somatosensory cortex either in the CS-contralateral or CS-ipsilateral hemisphere. After overnight consolidation, threat memory was attenuated in the contralateral compared to the ipsilateral group, as indicated by reduced startle eye-blink potentiation. There was no evidence for a difference between simple and complex stimuli, or that CS identification or conditioning was affected, suggesting a stronger effect of cTBS on consolidation than on initial stimulus processing. We propose that non-invasive stimulation of sensory cortex may provide a new avenue for interfering with threat memories in humans.

scholarly journals Dynamic perceptual feature selectivity in primary somatosensory cortex upon reversal learning

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronan Chéreau ◽  
Tanika Bawa ◽  
Leon Fodoulian ◽  
Alan Carleton ◽  
Stéphane Pagès ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Perceptual Learning ◽  
Somatosensory Cortex ◽  
Sensory Cortex ◽  
Primary Somatosensory Cortex ◽  
Primary Sensory Cortex ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Feature Selectivity ◽  
Stimulus Value ◽  
Reward Contingencies ◽  
Stimulus Features

ABSTRACTNeurons in primary sensory cortex encode a variety of stimulus features upon perceptual learning. However, it is unclear whether the acquired stimulus selectivity remains stable when the same input is perceived in a different context. Here, we monitored the activity of individual neurons in the mouse primary somatosensory cortex in a reward-based texture discrimination task. We tracked their stimulus selectivity before and after changing reward contingencies, which allowed us to identify various classes of neurons. We found neurons that stably represented a texture or the upcoming behavioral choice, but the majority was dynamic. Among those, a subpopulation of neurons regained selectivity contingent on stimulus-value. These value-sensitive neurons forecasted the onset of learning by displaying a distinct and transient increase in activity, depending on past behavioral experience. Thus, stimulus selectivity of excitatory neurons during perceptual learning is dynamic and largely relies on behavioral contingencies, even in primary sensory cortex.

scholarly journals Author Correction: Associative learning and extinction of conditioned threat predictors across sensory modalities

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura. R. Koenen ◽  
Robert. J. Pawlik ◽  
Adriane Icenhour ◽  
Liubov Petrakova ◽  
Katarina Forkmann ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Associative Learning ◽  
Sensory Modalities

scholarly journals Role of the Zebra Finch Auditory Thalamus in Generating Complex Representations for Natural Sounds

2010 ◽  
Vol 104 (2) ◽  
pp. 784-798 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noopur Amin ◽  
Patrick Gill ◽  
Frédéric E. Theunissen
Keyword(s):  
Receptive Fields ◽  
Neural Representation ◽  
Natural Sounds ◽  
Auditory Midbrain ◽  
Complex Sounds ◽  
Auditory Thalamus ◽  
Spectrotemporal Receptive Fields ◽  
Primary Sensory Cortex ◽  
Relay Nucleus ◽  
Field L

We estimated the spectrotemporal receptive fields of neurons in the songbird auditory thalamus, nucleus ovoidalis, and compared the neural representation of complex sounds in the auditory thalamus to those found in the upstream auditory midbrain nucleus, mesencephalicus lateralis dorsalis (MLd), and the downstream auditory pallial region, field L. Our data refute the idea that the primary sensory thalamus acts as a simple, relay nucleus: we find that the auditory thalamic receptive fields obtained in response to song are more complex than the ones found in the midbrain. Moreover, we find that linear tuning diversity and complexity in ovoidalis (Ov) are closer to those found in field L than in MLd. We also find prevalent tuning to intermediate spectral and temporal modulations, a feature that is unique to Ov. Thus even a feed-forward model of the sensory processing chain, where neural responses in the sensory thalamus reveals intermediate response properties between those in the sensory periphery and those in the primary sensory cortex, is inadequate in describing the tuning found in Ov. Based on these results, we believe that the auditory thalamic circuitry plays an important role in generating novel complex representations for specific features found in natural sounds.

scholarly journals Overlapping Representation of Basic Tastes in the Human Gustatory Cortex

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Du Zhang ◽  
Xiaoxiao Wang ◽  
Yanming Wang ◽  
Benedictor Alexander Nguchu ◽  
Zhoufang Jiang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Fundamental Property ◽  
Insular Cortex ◽  
Taste Preference ◽  
Topological Representation ◽  
Activation Patterns ◽  
Gustatory Cortex ◽  
Taste Response ◽  
Neural Activities ◽  
Sensory Cortices ◽  
Multivariate Pattern

The topological representation is a fundamental property of human primary sensory cortices. The human gustatory cortex (GC) responds to the five basic tastes: bitter, salty, sweet, umami, and sour. However, the topological representation of the human gustatory cortex remains controversial. Through functional magnetic resonance imaging(fMRI) measurements of human responses to the five basic tastes, the current study aimed to delineate the taste representations within the GC. During the scanning, the volunteers tasted solutions of the five basic tastes, then washed their mouths with the tasteless solution. The solutions were then sucked from the volunteers' mouths, eliminating the action of swallowing. The results showed that the bilateral mid-insula activated most during the taste task, and the active areas were mainly in the precentral and central insular sulcus. However, the regions responding to the five basic tastes are substantially overlapped, and the analysis of contrasts between each taste response and the averaged response to the remaining tastes does not report any significant results. Furthermore, in the gustatory insular cortex, the multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) was unable to distinguish the activation patterns of the basic tastes, suggesting the possibility of weakly clustered distribution of the taste-preference neural activities in the human insular cortex. In conclusion, the presented results suggest overlapping representations of the basic tastes in the human gustatory insular cortex.

Mirror-representation of the right hand in human primary sensory cortex — An fMRI study

NeuroImage ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 1226
Author(s):  
Robert Meyer ◽  
Felix Blankenburg ◽  
Jan Ruben ◽  
Jessica Schwiemann ◽  
Sebastian Thees ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sensory Cortex ◽  
Right Hand ◽  
Primary Sensory Cortex ◽  
Fmri Study ◽  
The Right

scholarly journals Infragranular barrel cortex activity is enhanced with learning

2012 ◽  
Vol 108 (5) ◽  
pp. 1278-1287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebekah L. Ward ◽  
Luke C. Flores ◽  
John F. Disterhoft
Keyword(s):  
Single Unit ◽  
Barrel Cortex ◽  
Eyeblink Conditioning ◽  
Sensory Cortex ◽  
Learning Criterion ◽  
Extracellular Recordings ◽  
Primary Sensory Cortex ◽  
Whisker Stimulation ◽  
Trace Eyeblink Conditioning

The barrel cortex (BC) is essential for the acquisition of whisker-signaled trace eyeblink conditioning and shows learning-related expansion of the trained barrels after the acquisition of a whisker-signaled task. Most previous research examining the role of the BC in learning has focused on anatomic changes in the layer IV representation of the cortical barrels. We studied single-unit extracellular recordings from individual neurons in layers V and VI of the BC as rabbits acquired the whisker-signaled trace eyeblink conditioning task. Neurons in layers V and VI in both conditioned and pseudoconditioned animals robustly responded to whisker stimulation, but neurons in conditioned animals showed a significant enhancement in responsiveness in concert with learning. Learning-related changes in firing rate occurred as early as the day of learning criterion within the infragranular layers of the primary sensory cortex.

Coherent Electrical Activity Between Vibrissa Sensory Areas of Cerebellum and Neocortex Is Enhanced During Free Whisking

2002 ◽  
Vol 87 (4) ◽  
pp. 2137-2148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean M. O'Connor ◽  
Rune W. Berg ◽  
David Kleinfeld
Keyword(s):  
Electrical Activity ◽  
Sensory Input ◽  
Field Potential ◽  
Sensory Cortex ◽  
Brain Areas ◽  
Low Coherence ◽  
Primary Sensory Cortex ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Local Field Potential Lfp

We tested if coherent signaling between the sensory vibrissa areas of cerebellum and neocortex in rats was enhanced as they whisked in air. Whisking was accompanied by 5- to 15-Hz oscillations in the mystatial electromyogram, a measure of vibrissa position, and by 5- to 20-Hz oscillations in the differentially recorded local field potential (∇LFP) within the vibrissa area of cerebellum and within the ∇LFP of primary sensory cortex. We observed that only 10% of the activity in either cerebellum or sensory neocortex was significantly phase-locked to rhythmic motion of the vibrissae; the extent of this modulation is in agreement with the results from previous single-unit measurements in sensory neocortex. In addition, we found that 40% of the activity in the vibrissa areas of cerebellum and neocortex was significantly coherent during periods of whisking. The relatively high level of coherence between these two brain areas, in comparison with their relatively low coherence with whisking per se, implies that the vibrissa areas of cerebellum and neocortex communicate in a manner that is incommensurate with whisking. To the extent that the vibrissa areas of cerebellum and neocortex communicate over the same frequency band as that used by whisking, these areas must multiplex electrical activity that is internal to the brain with activity that is that phase-locked to vibrissa sensory input.

scholarly journals Reward Timing and Its Expression by Inhibitory Interneurons in the Mouse Primary Visual Cortex

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (8) ◽  
pp. 4662-4676
Author(s):  
Kevin J Monk ◽  
Simon Allard ◽  
Marshall G Hussain Shuler
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Primary Visual Cortex ◽  
Network Architecture ◽  
Sensory Cortex ◽  
Inhibitory Interneurons ◽  
In Vivo Electrophysiology ◽  
Timing Information ◽  
Primary Sensory Cortex ◽  
A Site

Abstract The primary sensory cortex has historically been studied as a low-level feature detector, but has more recently been implicated in many higher-level cognitive functions. For instance, after an animal learns that a light predicts water at a fixed delay, neurons in the primary visual cortex (V1) can produce “reward timing activity” (i.e., spike modulation of various forms that relate the interval between the visual stimulus and expected reward). Local manipulations to V1 implicate it as a site of learning reward timing activity (as opposed to simply reporting timing information from another region via feedback input). However, the manner by which V1 then produces these representations is unknown. Here, we combine behavior, in vivo electrophysiology, and optogenetics to investigate the characteristics of and circuit mechanisms underlying V1 reward timing in the head-fixed mouse. We find that reward timing activity is present in mouse V1, that inhibitory interneurons participate in reward timing, and that these representations are consistent with a theorized network architecture. Together, these results deepen our understanding of V1 reward timing and the manner by which it is produced.

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