Effects of stimulus timing on the acquisition of an olfactory working memory task in head-fixed mice

Author:

Reuschenbach JosefineORCID,Reinert Janine KORCID,Fukunaga IzumiORCID

Abstract

AbstractKnowing what factors affect the acquisition of a behavioural task is central to understanding the mechanisms of learning and memory. It also has practical implications, as animal behavioural experiments used to probe cognitive functions often require long training durations. Delayed Match (or Non-Match)-to-Sample (DMS/DNMS) tasks are relatively complex tasks used to study working memory and sensory perception, but their use in the mouse remains hampered by the lengthy training involved. In this study, we assessed two aspects of stimulus timing on the acquisition of an olfactory DNMS task: how the sample-test odour delay durations and the reward timing affect the acquisition rate. We demonstrate that head-fixed mice learn to perform an olfactory DNMS task more quickly when the initial training uses a shorter sample-test odour delay without detectable loss of generalisability. Unexpectedly, we observed a slower task acquisition when the odour-reward interval was shorter. This effect was accompanied by a shortening of reaction times and more frequent sporadic licking. Analysis of this result using a drift-diffusion model indicated that a primary consequence of early reward delivery is a lower decision bound. Since an accurate performance with a lower decision bound requires greater discriminability in the sensory representations, this may underlie the slower learning rate with early reward arrival. Together, our results reflect the possible effects of stimulus timing on stimulus encoding and its consequence on the acquisition of a complex task.

Publisher

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

同舟云学术

1.学者识别学者识别

2.学术分析学术分析

3.人才评估人才评估

"同舟云学术"是以全球学者为主线,采集、加工和组织学术论文而形成的新型学术文献查询和分析系统,可以对全球学者进行文献检索和人才价值评估。用户可以通过关注某些学科领域的顶尖人物而持续追踪该领域的学科进展和研究前沿。经过近期的数据扩容,当前同舟云学术共收录了国内外主流学术期刊6万余种,收集的期刊论文及会议论文总量共计约1.5亿篇,并以每天添加12000余篇中外论文的速度递增。我们也可以为用户提供个性化、定制化的学者数据。欢迎来电咨询!咨询电话:010-8811{复制后删除}0370

www.globalauthorid.com

TOP

Copyright © 2019-2024 北京同舟云网络信息技术有限公司
京公网安备11010802033243号  京ICP备18003416号-3