Learning and Representation of Categories in the Rodent Brain

Category learning—the ability to group individual objects, experiences, and concepts into higher-level abstract representations—is fundamental to fast, flexible decision-making and generalization of knowledge to novel situations. While categories and concepts have traditionally been studied in humans and nonhuman primates, this review puts the focus on the lesser-known domain of rodent category learning. Within the context of human and nonhuman primate work, we highlight the behavioral capabilities and limitations of rodents in categorization tasks, and discuss the neural circuits identified so far. Finally, we outline a roadmap for uncovering the systems and synaptic mechanisms that support the representation of learned categories in the mammalian brain.