ArticleLearning & memory (Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.)2020
Roles of the medial prefrontal cortex, mediodorsal thalamus, and their combined circuit for performance of the odor span task in rats: analysis of memory capacity and foraging behavior.
Article in Learning & memory (Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.), 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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14 citing papers in PubMed.
- From network hub to therapeutic target: the role of mediodorsal thalamic nucleus in epilepsy.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2026Review
- Activity of CaMKII-expressing neurons in medial prefrontal cortex of male and female Long-Evans rats is necessary for encoding odor information and novelty recognition in an odor-based incidental memory test.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2025Article
- Intranasal Autologous Conditioned Serum Attenuates Memory Impairment After mPFC Ischemia in Mice.Basic and clinical neuroscience · 2025Article
- Synaptic plasticity in human thalamocortical assembloids.Cell reports · 2024Article
- Nucleus accumbens core dopamine D2 receptors are required for performance of the odor span task in male rats.Psychopharmacology · 2024Article
- Synaptic plasticity in human thalamocortical assembloids.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- The role of the mediodorsal thalamus in chemosensory preference and consummatory behavior in rats.Chemical senses · 2024Article
- High-THCeNeuro · 2023Article
- Thalamic gray matter volume mediates the association between KIBRA polymorphism and olfactory function among older adults: a population-based study.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2023Article
- Male and female impairments in odor span are observed in a rat model of PTSD.Learning & memory (Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.) · 2023Article
- Incrementing non-matching- but not matching-to-sample is rapidly learned in an automated version of the odor span task.Animal cognition · 2022Article
- The rodent medial prefrontal cortex and associated circuits in orchestrating adaptive behavior under variable demands.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2022Review
- Variation of connectivity across exemplar sensory and associative thalamocortical loops in the mouse.eLife · 2020Article
- Evidence for novelty reward cross-cueing in the odor span task in rats: implications for odor-based reward-motivated tasks.Learning & memory (Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.)Article
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7 authors.
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Abstract
Working memory (WM), the capacity for short-term storage of small quantities of information for immediate use, is thought to depend on activity within the prefrontal cortex. Recent evidence indicates that the prefrontal neuronal activity supporting WM is driven by thalamocortical connections arising in mediodorsal thalamus (mdThal). However, the role of these connections has not been studied using olfactory stimuli leaving open the question of whether this circuit extends to all sensory modalities. Additionally, manipulations of the mdThal in olfactory memory tasks have yielded mixed results. In the present experiment, we investigated the role of connections between the rat medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and mdThal in the odor span task (OST) using a pharmacological contralateral disconnection technique. Inactivation of either the mPFC or mdThal alone both significantly impaired memory performance in the OST, replicating previous findings with the mPFC and confirming that the mdThal plays an essential role in intact OST performance. Contralateral disconnection of the two structures impaired OST performance in support of the idea that the OST relies on mPFC-mdThal connections, but ipsilateral control infusions also impaired performance, complicating this interpretation. We also performed a detailed analysis of rats' errors and foraging behavior and found a dissociation between mPFC and mdThal inactivation conditions. Inactivation of the mdThal and mPFC caused a significant reduction in the number of approaches rats made per odor, whereas only mdThal inactivation or mPFC-mdThal disconnection caused significant increases in choice latency. Our results confirm that the mdThal is necessary for performance of the OST and that it may critically interact with the mPFC to mediate OST performance. Additionally, we have provided evidence that the mPFC and mdThal play dissociable roles in mediating foraging behavior.
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