Abstract
Behavioral responses can be classified as innate or learned and are often mediated by distinct neuronal pathways. In many animals, chemical cues are crucial for directing behaviors, and multiple chemosensory subsystems serve this purpose. The major subsystems in vertebrates are the main olfactory system (MOS) and the vomeronasal system (VNS). While the MOS has well-documented associative capabilities, the VNS is known for its role in mediating innate responses to sensory cues with clear ethological significance. However, it remains unknown whether the VNS can map arbitrary sensory activation to novel behavioral outputs. To address this question, we used several optogenetic strategies for selective vomeronasal activation and tested whether mice could associate stimulation patterns with particular reward locations. Our experiments indicate that mice can, indeed, exploit VNS activity to direct novel behavioral responses, implying that the VNS holds a substantial capacity for redirecting and adapting behavioral responses to given stimulation patterns.
| Original language | American English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 676-684.e6 |
| Journal | Cell Reports |
| Volume | 27 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 16 Apr 2019 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We thank Dana Blatch and Or Front for conducting early experiments; Anne Lanjuin and Catherine Dulac for generating and providing Tbet-Cre mice; Trese Leinders-Zufall for providing Omp-Cre mice; Anatoly Shapochnikov for designing and building electronics; Dr. Burt Slotnick for advice on the licking circuit; the Binshtok, Kupchik, and Goldberg labs (Hebrew University) for help with viral injections; Ofer Yizhar for advice on optogenetics; Corinna H. Engelhardt and Jessica von Bongartz (RWTH-Aachen University) for technical assistance; Katja Watznauer for help with tissue clearing and imaging; and Ian Davison and Dani Rokni for reading and insightfully commenting on the manuscript. This work was funded by the Israeli Science Foundation (grant 1703/16) and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (SP724/11-1). M.S. is a Lichtenberg Professor of the Volkswagen Foundation. Conceptualization, Y.B.-S. and K.M.; Methodology, Y.B.-S. and K.M.; Software, Y.B.-S.; Investigation, K.M. N.H. A.A.-S. A.D. and R.P.; Formal analysis, N.H. K.M. and Y.B.-S.; Preparation and analysis of clarified brain, D.F. and M.S.; Writing: Y.B.-S. and K.M. The authors declare no competing interests.
Funding Information:
We thank Dana Blatch and Or Front for conducting early experiments; Anne Lanjuin and Catherine Dulac for generating and providing Tbet-Cre mice; Trese Leinders-Zufall for providing Omp-Cre mice; Anatoly Shapochnikov for designing and building electronics; Dr. Burt Slotnick for advice on the licking circuit; the Binshtok, Kupchik, and Goldberg labs (Hebrew University) for help with viral injections; Ofer Yizhar for advice on optogenetics; Corinna H. Engelhardt and Jessica von Bongartz (RWTH-Aachen University) for technical assistance; Katja Watznauer for help with tissue clearing and imaging; and Ian Davison and Dani Rokni for reading and insightfully commenting on the manuscript. This work was funded by the Israeli Science Foundation (grant 1703/16 ) and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft ( SP724/11-1 ). M.S. is a Lichtenberg Professor of the Volkswagen Foundation.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 The Author(s)
Keywords
- accessory olfactory bulb
- associative learning
- plasticity
- vomeronasal system