Establishment and plasticity of an olfactory sensory map

在哺乳动物嗅觉系统中，受体激活的地形图定义了嗅觉感官刺激的质量。神经元表达一种给定的受体，因此对给定的气味有反应，精确地投射到小鼠嗅球内1800个地形固定的肾小球中的两个。由于单个肾小球的位置在地形上是确定的，因此球提供了一个空间图，可以识别在感觉上皮内的众多受体中哪些被激活。气味质量不变地形图的识别立即提出了一个有趣的问题，即这个地图是如何在开发过程中建立的，以及它如何随着经验而变化。这个项目的重点是活动依赖的可塑性在嗅觉感官投射地形图的建立、维护和完善中的作用。

DESCRIPTION: In the mammalian olfactory system, a topographic map of receptor activation defines the quality of an olfactory sensory stimulus. Neurons expressing a given receptor, and therefore responsive to a given odorant, project with precision to two of the 1800 topographically-fixed glomeruli within the mouse olfactory bulb. Since the position of individual glomeruli are topographically defined, the bulb provides a spatial map that identifies which of the numerous receptors have been activated within the sensory epithelium. The identification of an invariant topographic map of odor quality immediately poses the interesting question as how this map is established during development and how it changes with experience. This project focuses on the role of activity-dependent plasticity in the establishment, maintenance, and refinement of a topographic map of olfactory sensory projections.