Integration of olfactory information in a spatial representation enabling accurate arm choice in the radial arm maze.

Lavenex, Pierre; Schenk, Françoise

doi:10.1101/lm.2.6.299

Cited by 52 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…This study is, in fact, not the first example of illumination levels critically affecting the use of olfactory cues. Experiments run in a radial-maze in either the light or the dark, and with either the presence or absence of additional olfactory cues, clearly showed how olfactory cues were only used to guide accurate arm choice when the rats were in the dark (Lavenex and Schenk 1995). Likewise, previous studies have shown how visuospatial cues can outweigh olfactory cues when the two are in conflict (Olton and Collison 1979;Suzuki et al 1980).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Separate but interacting recognition memory systems for different senses: The role of the rat perirhinal cortex

Albasser

Amin²,

Iordanova³

et al. 2011

Learn. Mem.

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Two different models (convergent and parallel) potentially describe how recognition memory, the ability to detect the re-occurrence of a stimulus, is organized across different senses. To contrast these two models, rats with or without perirhinal cortex lesions were compared across various conditions that controlled available information from specific sensory modalities. Intact rats not only showed visual, tactile, and olfactory recognition, but also overcame changes in the types of sensory information available between object sampling and subsequent object recognition, e.g., between sampling in the light and recognition in the dark, or vice versa. Perirhinal lesions severely impaired object recognition whenever visual cues were available, but spared olfactory recognition and tactile-based object recognition when tested in the dark. The perirhinal lesions also blocked the ability to recognize an object sampled in the light and then tested for recognition in the dark, or vice versa. The findings reveal parallel recognition systems for different senses reliant on distinct brain areas, e.g., perirhinal cortex for vision, but also show that: (1) recognition memory for multisensory stimuli involves competition between sensory systems and (2) perirhinal cortex lesions produce a bias to rely on vision, despite the presence of intact recognition memory systems serving other senses.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Separate but interacting recognition memory systems for different senses: The role of the rat perirhinal cortex

Albasser

Amin²,

Iordanova³

et al. 2011

Learn. Mem.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Nevertheless, despite their increased exploratory behavior, women did not prove to be any less accurate in our spatial task: females first identified the rewarded locations, and then continued exploring the arena. If subjects had not been allowed to explore the environment after finding the rewards, some might have done so before focusing on the experimenter-defined 'goal' of the task [27,29]. Under such conditions, females' increased exploratory behavior might have thus led to an increase in the number of "errors" prior to finding all the rewards, resulting in poorer performance on the task as compared to males.…”

Section: Are There Gender Differences In Spatial Relational Learning mentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial relational learning and memory abilities do not differ between men and women in a real-world, open-field environment

Lavenex

2010

Behavioural Brain Research

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This study assesses gender differences in spatial and non-spatial relational learning and memory in adult humans behaving freely in a real-world, open-field environment. In Experiment 1, we tested the use of proximal landmarks as conditional cues allowing subjects to predict the location of rewards hidden in one of two sets of three distinct locations. Subjects were tested in two different conditions: (1) when local visual cues marked the potentially-rewarded locations, and (2) when no local visual cues marked the potentially-rewarded locations. We found that only 17 of 20 adults (8 males, 9 females) used the proximal landmarks to predict the locations of the rewards. Although females exhibited higher exploratory behavior at the beginning of testing, males and females discriminated the potentially-rewarded locations similarly when local visual cues were present. Interestingly, when the spatial and local information conflicted in predicting the reward locations, males considered both spatial and local information, whereas females ignored the spatial information. However, in the absence of local visual cues females discriminated the potentially-rewarded locations as well as males. In Experiment 2, subjects (9 males, 9 females) were tested with three asymmetrically-arranged rewarded locations, which were marked by local cues on alternate trials. Again, females discriminated the rewarded locations as well as males in the presence or absence of local cues. In sum, although particular aspects of task performance might differ between genders, we found no evidence that women have poorer allocentric spatial relational learning and memory abilities than men in a real-world, open-field environment.

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“…Under these conditions, rats will track an odor trail to a goal (34), even underwater (35). They can also orient to an array of odorant sources and will do so in the absence of visual cues (36). As they mature, however, rats require visual cues to orient in a lighted maze, even in the presence of learned olfactory cues.…”

Section: Mammalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

From chemotaxis to the cognitive map: The function of olfaction

Jacobs

2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

170

176

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A paradox of vertebrate brain evolution is the unexplained variability in the size of the olfactory bulb (OB), in contrast to other brain regions, which scale predictably with brain size. Such variability appears to be the result of selection for olfactory function, yet there is no obvious concordance that would predict the causal relationship between OB size and behavior. This discordance may derive from assuming the primary function of olfaction is odorant discrimination and acuity. If instead the primary function of olfaction is navigation, i.e., predicting odorant distributions in time and space, variability in absolute OB size could be ascribed and explained by variability in navigational demand. This olfactory spatial hypothesis offers a single functional explanation to account for patterns of olfactory system scaling in vertebrates, the primacy of olfaction in spatial navigation, even in visual specialists, and proposes an evolutionary scenario to account for the convergence in olfactory structure and function across protostomes and deuterostomes. In addition, the unique percepts of olfaction may organize odorant information in a parallel map structure. This could have served as a scaffold for the evolution of the parallel map structure of the mammalian hippocampus, and possibly the arthropod mushroom body, and offers an explanation for similar flexible spatial navigation strategies in arthropods and vertebrates.sensory | memory | orientation | limbic

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Integration of olfactory information in a spatial representation enabling accurate arm choice in the radial arm maze.

Abstract: The aim of the present study was to determine whether and how rats can use local olfactory cues for spatial orientation.

Cited by 52 publications

References 39 publications

Separate but interacting recognition memory systems for different senses: The role of the rat perirhinal cortex

Separate but interacting recognition memory systems for different senses: The role of the rat perirhinal cortex

Spatial relational learning and memory abilities do not differ between men and women in a real-world, open-field environment

From chemotaxis to the cognitive map: The function of olfaction

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