, 2009;

Roesch and Olson, 2003, 2004; Schoenbaum et al ,

, 2009;

Roesch and Olson, 2003, 2004; Schoenbaum et al., 1998; Schoenbaum and Eichenbaum, 1995; Tremblay and Schultz, 1999). This begs the question of whether a build-up of reward-related expectancy signals toward a decision could underlie our findings. However, subjects in our study were not rewarded for correct trials or given response feedback. Therefore, in the absence of explicit access to value or outcome information, the generation of a signal that encoded, and integrated, expected value over time would likely have been negligible. Another alternative is that the within-trial increase in OFC activity Dactolisib mw represents a motor readiness signal, or an impetus to act, that increases over time as subjects converge on a decision. These “myoeconomic” arguments (Maunsell, 2004; Roesch and Olson, 2003, 2004) contend that the neuronal signatures of reward value in areas such as LIP or premotor frontal cortex more accurately represent motivational and motor preparatory responses engaged as an effect of reward anticipation. Again, because our subjects received no feedback or reward, there would not have been an opportunity for reward-based induction of motor readiness signals. Finally, whether the OFC signal

reflects attention or arousal effects seems unlikely, Smad inhibitor because more difficult mixtures (more attentionally demanding) elicited the same magnitude of OFC activity as less difficult mixtures (see Supplemental Experimental Procedures). The identification of olfactory evidence integration in OFC broadly accords with findings from a wide range of studies showing that integrative mechanisms are at the core of much of OFC function, including multisensory integration, associative (cue-outcome) learning, and experience-dependent perceptual plasticity. It also fits soundly with its suggested role in integrating information

about unique outcomes in real time (Schoenbaum and Esber, 2010; Takahashi et al., 2009), particularly when experience alone is insufficient Sodium butyrate to formulate predictions about future events. Our new findings highlight the capacity of OFC to maintain and integrate perceptual evidence online, enabling the olfactory system to extract meaningful perceptual signals from noisy inputs. As noted above, the fact that OFC stands at the transition between the olfactory system, limbic and paralimbic areas, and prefrontal cortex (Ongür et al., 2003) has important implications for understanding its unique role in higher-order control of odor-based behavior. The temporal instantiation of an odor percept in OFC could serve to orchestrate downstream effector systems, providing network coordination of autonomic, affective, and motor preparatory responses. In turn, centrifugal inputs from prefrontal executive areas to OFC could help regulate the decision boundary settings for integration.

Comments are closed.