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| Poster #165 Temporal Dynamics of Decision-Predicting Time Cells in Olfactory Discrimination: Molecular and Neural Mechanisms of Associative Learning |
| Kira Steinke, Emily Gibson, Diego Restrepo University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, CO, United States |
In nature, an animal's survival hinges on its ability to process and integrate sensory information. This skill is crucial for finding food, avoiding threats, and selecting mates. Importantly, the success of these behaviors is rooted in the interplay between olfaction and experience, especially influenced by available contextual information. Thus, simply detecting an odor is insufficient; an animal must apply meaning to it and respond appropriately. Previous research has consistently highlighted the hippocampus, particularly the dorsal CA1 (dCA1) region, as a key player in learning and memory processes. Our previous work has shown that during olfactory discrimination learning, dCA1 pyramidal cells develop specific responses to odors as animals become more adept at go/no-go tasks. Our recent findings reveal that certain groups of pyramidal neurons exhibit divergent responses to stimuli at specific time points, a phenomenon we term ‘time tiling’. This can be conceptualized as a temporally distinct divergence in neural activity related to stimulus valence during the associative learning process of the go/no-go task, and thus we named these cells ‘Decision Predicting Time Cells’or DPTCs. Utilizing two-photon microscopy, this work focuses on the molecular characterization of DPTCs, particularly their expression of Calbindin2, as well as the contribution of Parvalbumin interneurons to the go/no-go olfactory discrimination task. Ultimately this study will help to uncover crucial details about how memories are formed and retrieved in the brain, and through this work we expect to gain a deeper understanding of the neural mechanisms at play. Such knowledge could prove invaluable in unraveling the complexities of memory-related disorders and potentially pave the way for innovative therapeutic approaches. |