Orbitofrontal neurons acquire responses to 'valueless' Pavlovian cues during unblocking
- National Institute on Drug Abuse, United States
- University of Pittsburg, United States
- University of Maryland School of Medicine, United States
- National Taiwan University, Taiwan
- Johns Hopkins University, United States
Abstract
The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) has been described as signaling outcome expectancies or value. Evidence for the latter comes from the studies showing that neural signals in the OFC correlate with value across features. Yet features can co-vary with value, and individual units may participate in multiple ensembles coding different features. Here we used unblocking to test whether OFC neurons would respond to a predictive cue signaling a 'valueless' change in outcome flavor. Neurons were recorded as the rats learned about cues that signaled either an increase in reward number or a valueless change in flavor. We found that OFC neurons acquired responses to both predictive cues. This activity exceeded that exhibited to a 'blocked' cue and was correlated with activity to the actual outcome. These results show that OFC neurons fire to cues with no value independent of what can be inferred through features of the predicted outcome.
Article and author information
Author details
Reviewing Editor
- Howard Eichenbaum, Boston University, United States
Ethics
Animal experimentation: Rats were tested at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the NIDA-IRP in accordance with SOM and NIH guidelines (12-CNRB-108).
Version history
- Received: February 26, 2014
- Accepted: July 17, 2014
- Accepted Manuscript published: July 18, 2014 (version 1)
- Accepted Manuscript updated: July 20, 2014 (version 2)
- Version of Record published: August 14, 2014 (version 3)
Copyright
This is an open-access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication.
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Orbitofrontal neurons acquire responses to 'valueless' Pavlovian cues during unblocking
eLife 3:e02653.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.02653
Further reading
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- Cell Biology
- Neuroscience
Multicellular organisms are composed of specialized cell types with distinct proteomes. While recent advances in single-cell transcriptome analyses have revealed differential expression of mRNAs, cellular diversity in translational profiles remains underinvestigated. By performing RNA-seq and Ribo-seq in genetically defined cells in the Drosophila brain, we here revealed substantial post-transcriptional regulations that augment the cell-type distinctions at the level of protein expression. Specifically, we found that translational efficiency of proteins fundamental to neuronal functions, such as ion channels and neurotransmitter receptors, was maintained low in glia, leading to their preferential translation in neurons. Notably, distribution of ribosome footprints on these mRNAs exhibited a remarkable bias toward the 5′ leaders in glia. Using transgenic reporter strains, we provide evidence that the small upstream open-reading frames in the 5’ leader confer selective translational suppression in glia. Overall, these findings underscore the profound impact of translational regulation in shaping the proteomics for cell-type distinction and provide new insights into the molecular mechanisms driving cell-type diversity.
