Biology subjects

Amigo-Duran, M.

Publications and source records attributed to Amigo-Duran, M..

2 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2023

Rat Wetness Response: Sensory Cues, Behavior & Fur-based Drying

It never rains in standard lab-confinements; thus we have limited understanding of animal reactions to water and wetness. To address this issue, we sprayed water on different body parts of rats and measured drying and fur temperature by thermal imaging while manipulating behavior, sensory cues and fur. Spraying water on rats resulted in fur changes (hair clumping, apex formation), grooming, shaking, and scratching. Anesthesia abolished behavioral responses, interfered with fur changes, and slowed drying. Spraying water on different body parts resulted in differential behavioral drying responses. Spraying the head resulted in grooming and shaking responses; water evaporated twice as fast as water sprayed on the animals back or belly. We observed no effect of whisker removal on post-water-spraying behavior. In contrast, local anesthesia of dorsal facial skin reduced post-water-spraying behavioral responses. Shaving of head fur drastically enhanced post-water-spraying behaviors, but reduced water loss during drying; indicating that fur promotes evaporation, acting in tandem with behavior to mediate drying. Excised wet fur patches dried and cooled faster than shaved excised wet skin. Water was sucked into distal hair tips, where it evaporated. We propose the wet-fur-heat-pump-hypothesis; fur might extract heat required for drying by cooling ambient air. O_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=186 HEIGHT=200 SRC="FIGDIR/small/557175v1_ufig1.gif" ALT="Figure 1"> View larger version (31K): org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@ea8b80org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@6ca3d9org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@78fccdorg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@11d0c83_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG C_FIG

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2023

Acquisition of non-olfactory encoding improves odour discrimination in olfactory cortex

Primary sensory cortices, initially considered elementary encoders of physicochemical attributes of environmental stimuli, are now known to be modulated by other aspects of experience, such as attentional state and internal expectations 1-3, movement-related signals 4-7 and spatial information 2, 8, 9. However, the specific role of these signals in cortical sensory processing is not fully understood 10. Here we reveal multiple and diverse non-olfactory responses in the primary olfactory (piriform) cortex (PCx), which dynamically enhance PCx odour discrimination according to behavioural demands. We designed a behavioural task using a virtual reality environment and performed recordings in PCx neurons. In this task, mice were trained to associate specific odours with visual contexts in order to receive a reward. We found that learning shifts PCx activity from encoding solely odour identity to a more complex regime. In this regime, positional, contextual, and associative responses emerge on odour-responsive neurons that thus become mixed-selective. Contextual information is sustained in PCx activity of expert animals, specifically when visual context identity is needed to solve the task. After learning, odours are better decoded from PCx activity when mice are engaged in the task and when odours are presented within a rewarded context. This enhancement of PCx olfactory processing is reliant on the acquired mixed-selectivity. Thus, the integration of extra-sensory inputs within primary sensory cortices can encode the behavioural relevance of encountered stimuli while improving sensory processing.

neuroscience↗