Coordination Funds

饥饿和繁殖可以说是动物行为中最相关的两种驱动力。大多数物种--从蠕虫到昆虫再到哺乳动物--都严重依赖嗅觉来遵循这些驱动力，即寻找食物和寻找合适的交配伙伴。相反，代谢和生殖状态根据动物的行为和生理需求沿着其一般唤醒的实际状态来调节气味感知。虽然我们开始了解嗅觉中的初级前馈处理，但许多短距离和长距离的经常性连接（部分与感觉流相反）的作用仍然难以捉摸，这些连接在整个门的嗅觉系统中越来越详细。在这里，我们建议，这些不同类型的经常性电路图案发挥重要的调节作用，在状态依赖的嗅觉处理，感知和行为。因此，这项倡议的目的是在远距离动物模型中通过实验来验证这一假设（昆虫对啮齿动物），从潜在的循环回路的神经解剖学水平，它们的个体突触连接和生理学，主要神经元的整体活动的调节，到通过示例性的基本状态依赖变量（即饥饿，生殖驱动，唤醒和体验。为了实现这一目标，我们将共同开发，标准化和优化方法，特别关注嗅觉刺激的精确控制和适用于研究经常性电路图案的记录技术。我们雄心勃勃的研究项目的预期成果不仅与嗅觉处理有关，而且将揭示整个神经系统内循环连接功能的基本规则和机制。

Hunger and reproduction are arguably the two most relevant drives in animal behaviour. Most species – from worms to insects to mammals – heavily rely on olfaction to follow these drives, i.e. to retrieve food and find suitable mating partners. Conversely, metabolic and reproductive states modulate odour perception according to the animal’s behavioural and physiological needs, along with its actual state of general arousal. While we start to understand primary feed-forward processing in olfaction, the role of the many short- and long-range recurrent connections - in part counter to the sensory stream - that are revealed in more and more detail in olfactory systems across phylae remain elusive. Here we propose that these different types of recurrent circuit motifs play an important modulatory role in state-dependent olfactory processing, perception and behaviour. The aim of this initiative is, therefore, to test this hypothesis experimentally in distant animal models (insects versus rodents), from the level of the neuroanatomy of the underlying recurrent circuits, their individual synaptic connectivity and physiology, the modulation of the ensemble activity of principal neurons, to the modulation of perception and behaviour by exemplary fundamental state-dependent variables, i.e. hunger, reproductive drive, arousal, and experience. To achieve this goal, we will jointly develop, standardize and optimize methods, with a special focus on precise control of the olfactory stimulus and on recording techniques suitable for studying recurrent circuit motifs. The expected outcomes of our ambitious research project will be relevant not only for olfactory processing but will reveal essential rules and mechanisms for the function of recurrent connections within the entire nervous system.