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Learning to associate certain food smells with unpleasant ailments following consumption helps many organisms learn which foods are unsafe. In a new study in JNeurosci, Dan Rokni and colleagues at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem used mice to explore how the brain learns that some smells signify "unsafe to ingest." The researchers focused on the role of the nucleus of the lateral olfactory tract (NLOT), which supports communication between the nose and the brain about smells.

The research team artificially manipulated NLOT neuron activity as mice learned to associate an odor present during water consumption with a subsequent unpleasant bodily experience from a lithium chloride injection. Activating or inhibiting these neurons hindered the ability to associate odors with the unpleasant bodily experience, suggesting that the pattern of activity matters more than activity alone.

Probing whether NLOT neurons are involved in discriminating between odors, the researchers found that manipulating the neurons did not impair this ability. Notably, NLOT neuron activity also did not play a role in associating another sense—the sense of hearing—with an unpleasant experience (foot shock, in this paradigm).

According to Rokni and colleagues, this work suggests that the NLOT is an important brain area for learning to associate odors with unpleasant bodily experiences following water consumption, at least in mice. These findings thus position this brain region as a major contributor to "unsafe" food detection, though more work is needed.

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