Dentate granule cells encode auditory decisions after reinforcement learning in rats.

ABSTRACT: Auditory-cued goal-oriented behaviors requires the participation of cortical and subcortical brain areas, but how neural circuits associate sensory-based decisions with goal locations through learning remains poorly understood. The hippocampus is critical for spatial coding, suggesting its possible involvement in transforming sensory inputs to the goal-oriented decisions. Here, we developed an auditory discrimination task in which rats learned to navigate to goal locations based on the frequencies of auditory stimuli. Using in vivo calcium imaging in freely behaving rats over the course of learning, we found that dentate granule cells became more active, spatially tuned, and responsive to task-related variables as learning progressed. Furthermore, only after task learning, the activity of

SUBMITTER: Shen J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8277790 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature