Coordination Funds

饥饿和繁殖可以说是动物行为中两个最相关的驱动力。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，即寻找食物和寻找合适的交配对象。相反，代谢和生殖状态根据动物的行为和生理需要，以及它的一般唤醒的实际状态来调节气味感知。当我们开始了解嗅觉的主要前馈过程时，许多短期和长期循环连接的作用-部分与感觉流相反-在整个门的嗅觉系统中越来越详细地揭示出来仍然是难以捉摸的。在这里，我们提出这些不同类型的循环回路基序在状态依赖的嗅觉加工、感知和行为中发挥重要的调节作用。因此，这项倡议的目的是在遥远的动物模型（昆虫与啮齿动物）中实验验证这一假设，从潜在循环回路的神经解剖学水平，它们的个体突触连通性和生理学，主要神经元集合活动的调节，到典型的基本状态依赖变量（如饥饿，生殖驱动，唤醒和经验）对感知和行为的调节。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合研究循环回路基元的记录技术。我们雄心勃勃的研究项目的预期结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.