Odor-directed attention and the medial prefrontal cortex

气味导向注意力和内侧前额叶皮层

• 批准号: 10200762
• 负责人: Hillary Lauren Cansler
• 金额: $ 6.86万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2019-07-01 至 2022-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10200762
• 关键词: Alzheimer' s Disease; Animals; Attention; Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder; Behavioral; Behavioral Paradigm; Bilateral; Biological Assay; Brain; Brain region; Calcium Signaling; Cognitive; Complex; Conflict (Psychology); Cues; Data Set; Disease; Exhibits; Extinction (Psychology); Failure; Feedback; Fiber; Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Health; Human; Implant; Jaw; Length; Light; Location; Medial; Modality; Monitor; Neurodegenerative Disorders; Neurons; Noise; Odors; Olfactory Cortex; Olfactory Pathways; Olfactory tubercle; Opsin; Outcome; Parkinson Disease; Pathway interactions; Patients; Perception; Photometry; Population; Population Heterogeneity; Prefrontal Cortex; Rattus; Rewards; Rodent; Role; Safety; Sensory; Shapes; Signal Transduction; Smell Perception; Stimulus; Testing; Thalamic structure; Work; attentional modulation; design; directed attention; executive function; experimental study; flexibility; improved; in vivo calcium imaging; innovation; insight; neural circuit; neuromechanism; novel; olfactory bulb; optical fiber; optogenetics; recruit; response; selective attention; sensory cortex; sensory system; therapeutic target

PROJECT SUMMARY Attention is a critical executive function. Attention adaptively shapes sensory information in the brain such that signals associated with relevant cues are enhanced. In some sensory systems, this is accomplished by top- down inputs from the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) to the sensory thalamus, which ultimately results in attentional modulation of sensory representations within sensory cortex. While it was once proposed that the lack of thalamic relay within the olfactory system might indicate that attention could not be directed to odors, it is now clear that odor-directed attention does occur and may involve modulation of the olfactory cortex. For example, odor-responsive neurons in the olfactory tubercle (OT), one olfactory cortex region, exhibit enhanced odor signal-to-noise during attention in a manner that may facilitate odor perception. Still, the neural mechanisms underlying attention-dependent changes in odor representations are completely unknown. Because odor information is not processed by the thalamus before arriving at the OT, studying attentional modulation of odor information among these neurons will reveal novel insights into mechanisms of top-down attention in the brain. This project will use rodents to identify circuits integral for selective attention to odors using in vivo calcium imaging and optogenetic approaches in the context of a cutting-edge attention paradigm. Given the attentional modulation of OT single unit responses, and the importance of the mPFC for attention, this project will focus on the direct projection from the mPFC into the OT. First, this project will define attention-dependent responses in specific populations of OT-projecting mPFC neurons by monitoring aggregate calcium signals in the context of selective attention to odors. Next, optogenetic perturbation of these same populations will determine the behavioral relevance of OT-projecting mPFC neurons for selective attention to odors. Ultimately, the outcomes of this project will identify top-down neural circuits that orchestrate the effects of attention on odor processing and perception.

项目摘要 注意力是一种关键的执行功能。注意力自适应地塑造大脑中的感觉信息， 与相关线索相关联的信号被增强。在某些感觉系统中，这是由上- 从内侧前额叶皮层（mPFC）到感觉丘脑的输入，最终导致 感觉皮层内感觉表征的注意力调节。虽然曾经有人提出， 嗅觉系统中丘脑中继的缺乏可能表明注意力不能被引导到气味上， 现在很清楚，气味导向的注意确实发生，可能涉及嗅觉皮层的调节。为 例如，嗅结节（OT）中的气味反应神经元，一个嗅觉皮层区域，表现出增强的 气味信号-噪声在注意的方式，可以促进气味感知。不过，神经机制 气味表征中潜在的注意力依赖性变化是完全未知的。因为气味 信息在到达OT之前没有被丘脑处理，研究气味的注意力调节 这些神经元之间的信息将揭示大脑中自上而下注意力机制的新见解。 这个项目将使用啮齿动物来识别电路的整体选择性注意气味使用体内钙 成像和光遗传学方法在一个前沿的注意力范式的背景下。考虑到 OT单一单元反应的调制，以及mPFC对注意力的重要性，本项目将重点关注 mPFC到OT的直接投射首先，这个项目将定义注意力依赖的反应， 通过监测在以下情况下聚集的钙信号来监测OT投射mPFC神经元的特定群体 选择性地注意气味。接下来，这些相同群体的光遗传学扰动将确定这些群体的光遗传学特性。 OT投射mPFC神经元对气味选择性注意的行为相关性。最终， 该项目的一部分将确定自上而下的神经回路，这些神经回路协调了注意力对气味处理的影响 和感知。