Daniel Wesson PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics
Case Western Reserve University
(December 6, 2016)
Identifying New Brain Mechanisms for Sensory Processing and Motivating Behaviors
How many times has the promise of a slice of piping hot pizza helped with the motivation to go to the gym? Especially since the pizza place is right next to the gym, and the delicious smell wafts over to the gym door? Dr. Wesson discussed his work on how olfactory cues can be used to motivate behaviors in the rodent. This work has shown that a particular place in the olfactory processing area of the brain, the olfactory tubercle, may encode smells differently if they predict a reward or if they are a reward. His future work will examine how the activity in this area correlates with attention and other behaviors.
A major question of wide importance is how animals engage their sensory environment to inform decisions and guide behaviors. This broad question holds implications for understanding not only the normal functioning of the nervous system, but also for elucidating manners whereby neurological disorders impact the brain. The research in our lab addresses this question by studying the neural centers in the mammalian olfactory system responsible for processing odors and for generating odor perception.
The research discussed in this talk builds upon recent discoveries by our lab that provide insights into the function of a previously underappreciated brain region, the ventral striatum’s olfactory tubercle. Our work, which largely utilizes physiological methods in behaving rodents, has defined the essential principles of odor information processing in the olfactory tubercle. Additionally, we have uncovered evidence that the olfactory tubercle flexibly encodes odors conditioned to predict rewards, goal-directed instrumental behaviors, and even rewards themselves. These results suggest a role for the olfactory tubercle in not just processing odor information, but additionally in integrating odors with a motivationally dependent and cognitively shaped behavioral response.
In this talk, I provided an overview of these initial insights and highlight ongoing projects that attempt to causally link the activity of olfactory tubercle neurons to motivated behaviors. I also defined the influence of cognitive states, specifically selective attention, on odor-guided behaviors and odor coding in the olfactory tubercle. Together, the results of these investigations will provide fundamental information on the mechanisms of olfaction and motivated behaviors.