The role of synchronized oscillatory neural activity in vomeronasal chemosensation

嗅觉是许多动物的主要感觉，特别是对老鼠这样的啮齿动物来说。它不仅帮助它们寻找食物，提醒它们注意捕食者的存在，而且还传达关于其他老鼠的性别、年龄、健康状况和个人身份的信息。在这样做的过程中，它对许多基本的行为反应，如性行为、父母行为、领土行为和攻击性，都有重要的影响。有关气味的信息是由相对简单的电路处理的，这构成了高级大脑功能进化的基础。了解大脑处理这些信息的方式有助于深入了解大脑的基本功能。例如，雌性老鼠能够通过它们的气味来识别它们的配偶。这种简单学习方式背后的大脑变化涉及感觉处理的第一阶段中被识别的脑细胞之间的特定联系，该脑细胞位于被称为副嗅球的区域。这种记忆痕迹的局部化程度在哺乳动物中非常罕见，这为研究学习影响感觉信息处理的方式提供了一个宝贵的机会。脑细胞不是单独运作的，而是在由相互连接的细胞组成的大型网络中相互通信。在过去的二十年里，很明显，这种网络中的活动是协调的，这样当细胞的活动同步时，它们的交流就会更有效。正是这种活动的同步产生了脑电波，当我们睡觉时，可以从头皮表面记录下来。该项目的目的是确定雌性小鼠大脑中对配偶气味做出反应的区域是如何产生和调节这种同步活动的。这将通过研究改变脑细胞之间通讯的药物如何影响脑电波的频率和大小来实现。脑电波、单个脑细胞的活动和老鼠行为之间的关系将被确定，看看这种关系在雌性学会识别她的配偶后会发生什么变化。这些信息将被用来检验目前的假设，即如何通过这样一个简单的神经系统实现配偶识别。该项目产生的信息将进一步加深我们对包括人类在内的其他物种大脑如何工作的理解。特别是，它将提供可用于构建大脑功能数学模型的数据。更好地了解学习过程中同步神经活动是如何变化的，将有助于更好地理解大脑如何处理和记忆感觉信息。此外，这将增加我们对控制生殖行为的大脑区域的了解，并最终可能带来以人道方法控制啮齿动物数量的新机会。

Smell is the dominant sense for many animals, and especially for rodents such as mice. It not only helps them find food and alerts them to the presence of predators, but also conveys information about the sex, age, health status and individual identity of other mice. In doing so, it has important influence over many basic behavioural responses such as sexual behaviour, parental behaviour, territorial behaviour and aggression. Information about smell is processed by relatively simple circuits, which have formed the basis for the evolution of higher brain functions. Understanding the way that the brain handles this information provides an insight into fundamental brain functions. For example, female mice are able to recognise their mate by their smell. The changes in the brain underlying this simple form of learning involve particular connections between identified brain cells at the first stage of sensory processing, in a region called the accessory olfactory bulb. This degree of localisation of a memory trace is highly unusual in mammals and provides a valuable opportunity to study the way that learning affects the processing of sensory information. Brain cells do not function alone, but communicate with each other in large networks of interconnected cells. It has become apparent over the last twenty years that the activity in such networks is coordinated so that cells communicate more effectively when their activity is synchronized. It is this synchronization of activity that produces the brain waves that can be recorded from the surface of the scalp when we sleep. The aim of this project is to determine how this synchronized activity is produced and regulated in the regions of the female mouse brain that respond to the smell of their mate. This will be achieved by examining how drugs that alter the communication between brain cells affect the frequency and size of the brain waves. The relationship between the brain waves, the activity of individual brain cells and the behaviour of the mice will be determined to see how this changes after the female has learned to recognise her mate. This information will be used to test the current hypothesis for how mate recognition can be achieved by such a simple neural system. The information generated by this project will further our understanding of how the brain works in other species, including humans. In particular it will provide data that can be used in the construction of mathematical models of brain function. A greater understanding of how synchronous neural activity changes during learning will provide greater understanding of how sensory information is processed and remembered by the brain. Furthermore, it will increase our understanding of the brain regions governing reproductive behaviour, and may eventually lead to new opportunities for humane methods to control rodent populations.