Cognitive capacities afford contingent associations between sensory information and behavioral responses. We studied this problem using an olfactory delayed match to sample task whereby a sample odor specifies the association between a subsequent test odor and rewarding action. Multi-neuron recordings revealed representations of the sample and test odors in olfactory sensory and association cortex, which were sufficient to identify the test odor as match or non-match. Yet, inactivation of a downstream premotor area (ALM), but not orbitofrontal cortex, confined to the epoch preceding the test odor led to gross impairment. Olfactory decisions that were not context-dependent were unimpaired. Therefore, ALM does not receive the outcome of a match/non-match decision from upstream areas. It receives contextual information-the identity of the sample-to establish the mapping between test odor and action. A novel population of pyramidal neurons in ALM layer 2 may mediate this process.

中文翻译：

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预电动机电路中的上下文相关决策。

认知能力提供了感官信息与行为反应之间的偶然联系。我们使用嗅觉延迟匹配到样本任务研究了此问题，其中样本气味指定了后续测试气味与奖励行为之间的关联。多神经元记录揭示了嗅觉感觉和联想皮层中样品和测试气味的表示，足以识别测试气味为匹配或不匹配。然而，仅在测试气味之前的时期内，下游运动前区（ALM）而不是眶额叶皮层的失活导致严重损伤。不依赖于上下文的嗅觉决定不会受到影响。因此，ALM不会从上游区域收到匹配/不匹配决定的结果。它接收上下文信息（样本的身份）以建立测试气味和作用之间的映射。ALM第2层中的锥体神经元的新种群可能介导了这一过程。