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Updated: May 13, 2026

Olfactory Context Dependent Memory: Direct Presentation of Odorants
Published on: September 18, 2018
Duration and specificity of olfactory nonassociative memory
Kaitlin G Freedman1, Sreya Radhakrishna, Olga Escanilla
1Computational Physiology Lab, Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.
Abstract:
Olfactory habituation is a simple form of nonassociative memory in which responsiveness to stable but behaviorally nonsignificant stimuli is decreased. Olfactory habituation has recently become a paradigm widely used to probe the neural substrate underlying olfactory perception and memory. This simple behavioral paradigm has been used successfully used to probe many aspects of olfactory processing, and it has recently become clear that the neural processes underlying olfactory habituation can depend on the task parameters used. We here further investigate memory specificity and duration using 2 variations in task parameters: the number of habituation trials and the time delay between habituation and cross-habituation testing. We find that memory specificity increases with the number of habituation trials but decreases with time after the last habituation trial.
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