RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Distinct representation of cue-outcome association by D1 and D2 neurons in the ventral striatum’s olfactory tubercle JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 2021.11.01.466363 DO 10.1101/2021.11.01.466363 A1 Nuné Martiros A1 Vikrant Kapoor A1 Spencer E. Kim A1 Venkatesh N. Murthy YR 2022 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/04/20/2021.11.01.466363.abstract AB Positive and negative associations acquired through olfactory experience are thought to be especially strong and long-lasting. The conserved direct olfactory sensory input to the ventral striatal olfactory tubercle (OT) and its convergence with dense dopaminergic input to the OT could underlie this privileged form of associative memory, but how this process occurs is not well understood. We imaged the activity of the two canonical types of striatal neurons, expressing D1 or D2 type dopamine receptors, in the OT at cellular resolution while mice learned odor-outcome associations ranging from aversive to rewarding. D1 and D2 neurons both responded to rewarding and aversive odors. D1 neurons in the OT robustly and bidirectionally represented odor valence, responding similarly to odors predicting similar outcomes regardless of odor identity. This valence representation persisted even in the absence of a licking response to the odors and in the absence of the outcomes, indicating a true transformation of odor sensory information by D1 OT neurons. In contrast, D2 neuronal representation of the odor-outcome associations was weaker, contingent on a licking response by the mouse, and D2 neurons were more selective for odor identity than valence. Stimulus valence coding in the OT was modality-sensitive, with separate sets of D1 neurons responding to odors and sounds predicting the same outcomes, suggesting that integration of multimodal valence information happens downstream of the OT. Our results point to distinct representation of identity and valence of odor stimuli by D1 and D2 neurons in the OT.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.