These latter findings raise the intriguing idea that cue-evoked states of gustatory expectation may generate a “preplay” of early information coding in response to unexpected taste. Well-designed control experiments helped rule out the possibility that cue-evoked responses in GC could have arisen from expectation-related differences in motor activity, including lever pressing, mouth movements, or selleck products other oromotor reactions. To the extent that the prestimulus, cue-related effects in GC are in fact anticipatory, it reasonably follows that these responses might be under top-down control. In order to test this hypothesis, the investigators performed dual recordings from GC and from the basolateral

amygdala (BLA), a region that has been implicated in network processing of taste coding (Grossman et al., 2008) and anticipatory states (Roesch et al., 2010), and sends direct projections to rodent GC (Saper, Linsitinib 1982). Like GC, the BLA responded to the auditory cues, but even more quickly, such that the average latency of cue-induced activity in BLA was on average 16 ms shorter than that of GC, a significant effect. These data, along with the finding of a cue-dependent strengthening of cross-correlation values between

BLA and GC, are consistent with a modulatory influence of BLA on anticipatory activity in GC. Finally, to confirm whether BLA played a causal role in GC response dynamics, cue-evoked activity was examined before and after inactivation of the BLA, through local bilateral injection of NBQX, an AMPA receptor antagonist. This manipulation impressively abolished the cue-evoked

activity in GC, highlighting the direct involvement check of BLA in establishing gustatory states of cortical expectation. Together these findings extend the traditional role of BLA in enriching sensory codes with emotional value. The findings presented here mark an important first step in understanding how expectation influences circuit activity in rodent GC, and add important information to the small but growing body of work exploring the neurocognitive interactions among attention, expectation, and chemosensory processing (Kerfoot et al., 2007, Nitschke et al., 2006, Saddoris et al., 2009, Stapleton et al., 2007, Veldhuizen et al., 2007, Veldhuizen et al., 2011, Zelano et al., 2005 and Zelano et al., 2011). The intriguing demonstration of gustatory information playback in GC during taste expectation raises an important question: what exactly is being played back prior to taste delivery? In the experimental design, the cue signaled to the rat that taste was imminent, but contained no information about stimulus identity or valence. Therefore the anticipatory activity in GC cannot be said to be playing back sensory-specific information about a particular stimulus.