Selective Attention Controls Olfactory Decisions and the Neural Encoding of Odors.

ABSTRACT: Critical animal behaviors, especially among rodents, are guided by odors in remarkably well-coordinated manners, yet many extramodal sensory cues compete for cognitive resources in these ecological contexts. That rodents can engage in such odor-guided behaviors suggests that they can selectively attend to odors. Indeed, higher-order cognitive processes-such as learning, memory, decision making, and action selection-rely on the proper filtering of sensory cues based on their relative salience. We developed a behavioral paradigm to reveal that rats are capable of selectively attending to odors in the presence of competing extramodal stimuli. We found that this selective attention facilitates accurate odor-guided decisions, which become further strengthened with experience. Further, we uncove

SUBMITTER: Carlson KS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6530575 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature