Elucidation of Odor Information Coding in Higher Olfactory Centers

在嗅觉系统中，气味信息被表示为嗅球（OB）中肾小球的神经活动的地形图。然而，在很大程度上仍然不清楚这种气味地图是如何转移到更高的大脑中心的。在本研究中，我结合遗传单神经元标记和图像配准技术来解决这个问题在斑马鱼。我发现1）单个OB神经元将轴突发送到多个前脑区域，并且2）每个目标区域接收来自OB的关于肾小球类别的非选择性或偏向性投射。这些结果表明，不同的前脑区域样本肾小球输入的不同组合，并创建各种形式的嗅觉表征。

In the olfactory system, odor information is represented as a topographic map of neural activities across glomeruli in the olfactory bulb (OB). However, it remains largely unknown how this odor map is transferred to higher brain centers. In the present study, I combined genetic single-neuron labeling and image registration techniques to address this issue in zebrafish. I found that 1) individual OB neurons send axons to multiple forebrain regions, and that 2) each target region receives either non-selective or biased projections from the OB with respect to glomerular classes. These results suggest that different forebrain regions sample distinct combinations of glomerular inputs and create various forms of olfactory representations.