Chemogenetic Disruption of Monkey Perirhinal Neurons Projecting to the Rostromedial Caudate Impairs Associative Learning

Primates, including humans, use stimulus-reward associations to guide foraging. We previously showed that both the rhinal cortex (Rh) and rostromedial caudate (rmCD) of rhesus monkeys play causal roles in assigning value to visual stimuli. Layer 5 neurons in Rh project to rmCD. Here, we reversibly interrupted this Layer 5 connection in two male monkeys by combining a unilateral Rh lesion with contralateral expression of an inhibitory DREADD delivered using a retrograde lentivirus (fusion glycoprotein type E) injected into rmCD. Interruption of projection neurons from Rh to rmCD had little effect on already learned stimulus-reward associations but impaired the learning of new associations. The learning impairment appeared when the projection neurons from the perirhinal cortex (PRh) to rmCD were silenced using microinjections of deschloroclozapine into PRh. The pathway-specific silencing led to a significant deficit in learning new stimulus-reward associations. These results suggest that the learning, but not retrieval, of visual stimulus-reward associations involves projection neurons from PRh to rmCD.

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Publication Details

Journal
Journal of Neuroscience
Published
2025-05-15
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1523/jneurosci.0491-25.2025
Primary Topic
Memory and Neural Mechanisms
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
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article

Chemogenetic Disruption of Monkey Perirhinal Neurons Projecting to the Rostromedial Caudate Impairs Associative Learning

Sanjay Telu, Mark A. G. Eldridge, Janita Turchi, Paulo C. Rodrı́guez et al.
Journal of Neuroscience
Memory and Neural Mechanisms
article

Chemogenetic Disruption of Monkey Perirhinal Neurons Projecting to the Rostromedial Caudate Impairs Associative Learning

Sanjay Telu, Mark A. G. Eldridge, Janita Turchi, Paulo C. Rodrı́guez, Nanami L. Miyazaki, Jeih‐San Liow, Victor W. Pike, Walter Lerchner, Bing Li, Tsuyoshi Setogawa, Jonah E Pearl, Barry J. Richmond, Robert B. Innis, Bruno B. Averbeck, Sridhar Goud Nerella, Wenliang Wang, Spencer Webster-Bass
article en

Abstract

Primates, including humans, use stimulus-reward associations to guide foraging. We previously showed that both the rhinal cortex (Rh) and rostromedial caudate (rmCD) of rhesus monkeys play causal roles in assigning value to visual stimuli. Layer 5 neurons in Rh project to rmCD. Here, we reversibly interrupted this Layer 5 connection in two male monkeys by combining a unilateral Rh lesion with contralateral expression of an inhibitory DREADD delivered using a retrograde lentivirus (fusion glycoprotein type E) injected into rmCD. Interruption of projection neurons from Rh to rmCD had little effect on already learned stimulus-reward associations but impaired the learning of new associations. The learning impairment appeared when the projection neurons from the perirhinal cortex (PRh) to rmCD were silenced using microinjections of deschloroclozapine into PRh. The pathway-specific silencing led to a significant deficit in learning new stimulus-reward associations. These results suggest that the learning, but not retrieval, of visual stimulus-reward associations involves projection neurons from PRh to rmCD.

Journal of NeuroscienceVol. 45(23)
National Institutes of Health (US), Harvard University (US), George Washington University (US), National Institute of Mental Health (US), National Institute of Mental Health (CZ), University of Toyama (JP), Newcastle University (GB)
Openalex Percentile: Top 90%
Memory and Neural Mechanisms
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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