Role of anterior olfactory nucleus for multi-sensory integration in the olfactory system

项目摘要 在不同的情况下遇到的感觉信号可能有完全不同的含义。在 早期的嗅觉系统，初步证据表明，这种（非嗅觉）上下文信息是 在非常早期的阶段就整合到气味表征中，甚至可能是主要的嗅球。最近 有证据表明，前嗅核（AON），一种直接邻接嗅球的结构， 用于整合传入的气味信息与来自腹侧海马的上下文信息 (vHC)并且对于解决上下文相关的嗅觉决策任务是必要的。 已知vHC将任务相关的空间上下文信息传递给其他大脑系统。我们这里 假设从vHC到AON的直接投射在整合中起主导作用， 上下文和嗅觉信息，并且AON将这种多感官上下文信息嵌入到 早期的气味表征我们的初步数据表明，啮齿动物可以学会以不同的方式应对 气味的基础上，他们遇到的空间环境，并表示这样一个规则， 依赖于AON和vHC，而类似但与气味无关的任务需要vHC但不需要AON。 我们提出了一个多管齐下的方法来理解整合的空间背景到嗅觉 表征，参与电生理学合奏录音和interareal连贯性 在清醒的行为啮齿动物中的测量，vHC和AON回路活动的光遗传学操纵， 和双标记策略，用于受试者内即刻早期基因（Fos）反应的比较 在时间上分开的两个实验条件下。

Project Summary Sensory signals encountered under different circumstances may have quite different implications. In the early olfactory system, preliminary evidence suggests that this (non-olfactory) contextual information is integrated into odor representations at a very early stage, potentially even the main olfactory bulb. Recent evidence indicates that the anterior olfactory nucleus (AON), a structure directly adjoining the olfactory bulb, serves to integrate afferent odor information with contextual information from the ventral hippocampus (vHC) and is necessary to solve contextually-dependent olfactory decision-making tasks. The vHC is known to relay task-relevant spatial contextual information to other brain systems. We here hypothesize that direct projections from the vHC to the AON play a dominant role in the integration of contextual and olfactory information, and that the AON embeds this multisensory contextual information into early-stage odor representations. Our preliminary data show that rodents can learn to respond differently to odors based on the spatial context in which they are encountered, and that the expression of such a rule depends on both AON and vHC, whereas a similar but odor-independent task requires vHC but not AON. We propose a multipronged approach to understanding the integration of spatial context into olfactory representations, engaging electrophysiological ensemble recordings and interareal coherence measurements in awake, behaving rodents, the optogenetic manipulation of vHC and AON circuit activities, and a double-labeling strategy for the within-subjects comparison of immediate-early gene (Fos) responses across two experimental conditions separated in time.