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. 2014 Apr 29;8:138. doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2014.00138

Figure 3.

Figure 3

Context-evoked behavioral and OB neural responses in the absence of olfactory stimulus. (A) Mice were trained to associate a visual context to an odorant (+limonene: Lim) 30 min per day during 10 days and tested on day 11. The day of the test, the same odorant as during training (“Lim-Lim” group), or an empty swab (“Lim-NO” group, NO: no odor) was introduced in the cage. In a third experimental group, mice were trained with +limonene, but tested in a different context without the odorant (“Lim-NO-ctxB” group). Mice were sacrificed (S) 1 h after the test. (B) Investigation time of the odor delivery device. Mice trained during 10 days with Lim and tested with no odor (Lim-NO) showed an investigation time of the odor port superior to the mice trained and tested with the same odorant (Lim-Lim). Moreover, when the visual context changed the day of the test, the increase of investigation time was no longer observed. (C) The density of Zif268-positive cells was similar between all groups. (D) The overlap between maps of Lim-Lim and Lim-NO was high (72%) indicating the similarity between those two maps. Overlap significantly decreased when Lim-NO was compared to Lim-NO-ctxB. (*p < 0.05; **p < 0.005). (E) Normalized 2-D maps of the density of Zif268-positive cells in the granule cell layer of Lim-Lim and Lim-NO groups showed a similar pattern of Zif268 expression. Cell density in this figure and in following figures is color-coded from low (blue) to high (red). When the context was changed the day of the test, this pattern was altered (Lim-NO-ctxB).