Social transmission of food safety depends on synaptic plasticity in the prefrontal cortex

Abstract

This is safe, you can eat it Social transmission of food preference is a model for studying nonspatial memory. In mice, a signal that food is safe to eat is transmitted by its smell along with molecules in the breath of a conspecific. How the odor itself is encoded and assigned valence is poorly understood. Loureiro et al. found a monosynaptic pathway between two brain areas, the piriform cortex and the medial prefrontal cortex, that plays a central role in this process. This connection strengthens during social interaction, thereby allowing a mouse to provide a food safety message to its companion. Science , this issue p. 991