Olfaction alters spatial memory strategy of scatter-hoarding animals.

Abstract

Although it has been suggested that olfaction is closely interconnected with hippocampal systems, whether olfaction regulates spatial memory strategy remains never known. Furthermore, no study has examined how olfaction mediates spatial memory established on the external objects, for example, caches made by scatter-hoarding animals. Here, we experimentally induced nondestructive and reversible olfaction loss of a scatter-hoarding animal Leopoldamys edwardsi, to test whether and how olfaction regulates spatial memory to mediate cache recovery and pilferage. Our results showed that the normal L. edwardsi preferred to pilfer caches of others rather than to recover their own using accurate spatial memory (35.7% vs. 18.6%). Anosmic L. edwardsi preferred to recover the caches they made prior to olfaction loss rather than to pilfer from others relied on spatial memory (54.2% vs. 36.0%). However, L. edwardsi with anosmia showed no preference either to the caches they established after olfaction loss or caches made by others (25.8% vs. 29.1%). These collectively indicate that olfaction loss has a potential to affect new memory formation but not previously established spatial memory on caches. Our study first showed that olfaction modified spatial memory strategy in cache recovery and pilferage behaviors of scatter-hoarding animals. We suggest that future studies pay more attention to the evolution of olfaction and its relationship with spatial memory strategy.