Odors May Prompt Certain Brain Cells to Make Decisions
taylorvich writes:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-02-odors-prompt-brain-cells-decisions.html
Researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus have discovered that odors stimulate specific brain cells that may play a role in rapid "go/no-go" decision-making.
The scientists focused on the hippocampus, an area of the brain crucial to memory and learning. They knew that so-called "time cells" played a major role in hippocampal function, but didn't know their role in associative learning.
"These are cells that would remind you to make a decision-do this or do that," said the study's senior author Diego Restrepo, Ph.D., a neuroscientist and professor of cell and developmental biology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.
The researchers observed that when mice were given the choice of responding to a fruity smell by licking on a spout that delivered sweet water, they quickly learned to lick the fruity smell as opposed to the smell of mineral oil.
"They have to associate the odor with the outcome of what they are doing so that's why they learn decision-making," said Ming Ma, Ph.D., a first author of the study and a senior instructor in cell and developmental biology at the CU School of Medicine. "When it's a fruit odor, they lick and get a reward. When it's mineral oil, they stop licking."
"The more they learned, the more the cells were stimulated, leading to more rapid decoding of the odors and allowing the mice to quickly become proficient at choosing the fruity smell," said Fabio Simoes de Souza, DSc, another first author of the study and an assistant research professor in cell and developmental biology at the CU School of Medicine.
The catalyst for the decision-making is the odor that travels up the nose, sending neural signals to the olfactory bulb and to the hippocampus. The two organs are closely connected. The information is swiftly processed and the brain makes a decision based on the input.
"Before this we didn't know there were decision-making cells in the hippocampus," Restrepo said. "The hippocampus is multitasking."
More information:
Ming Ma et al, Sequential activity of CA1 hippocampal cells constitutes a temporal memory map for associative learning in mice, Current Biology (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2024.01.021
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