Learning-associated flexibility of cortical taste coding is impaired in Shank3 knockout mice.

Shank3 knockout mice show impaired flexibility of gustatory cortex taste coding during conditioned taste aversion, with reduced stimulus-evoked suppression and slower CTA acquisition.

• Why it matters: Sensory processing defects in autism spectrum disorders may affect how cortical representations adapt to negative outcomes, but this link to flexible encoding and learning is unclear.
• What they did: Using two-photon calcium imaging in gustatory cortex during conditioned taste aversion learning, the study compared neuronal activity dynamics and taste discriminability between Shank3 knockout and wild-type mice.
• The result: Shank3 loss increased trial-to-trial correlated variability and reduced stimulus-evoked suppression during CTA acquisition, which was associated with slower CTA learning; extinction and reduced discriminability were faster in knockouts.

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