How Olfactory Information is Transformed from Bulb to Cortex

总结(项目2：嗅觉信息如何从球状细胞转化到皮层) 对神经科学来说，理解感觉如何转化为知觉是一个核心挑战。感官 信息是由与外部世界相互作用的受体检测到的。然后，此信息通过 经过多个阶段的处理，到达感觉最先出现的皮质感觉区。在这个项目中，我们采用 利用啮齿动物嗅觉系统相对“浅”的组织来确定气味如何对- 信息直接从嗅球转换到梨状皮质；本质上，检查 球内嗅觉输入的感觉表示到内侧嗅觉的皮质表示 一个单一的处理阶段。为此，我们将结合法兰克斯实验室(Duke Uni- 在Rinberg的专业知识的帮助下，记录和分析大量梨状神经元的活动 Lab(纽约大学)研究嗅球肾小球的光遗传激活。结合我们的努力 为我们提供了在录音时直接激活嗅球的特定区域(即输入)的独特机会 来自梨状皮质的神经元群体(即输出)。这提供了一个独特的机会，可以直接和 系统地确定嗅觉信息是如何从基本感觉表征转换而来的 鳞茎转化为皮层的整体知觉表征。然后我们将使用各种分子遗传工具来 选择性地干扰这个电路的特定组件，这将揭示每个 组件在实现这种转换中发挥了作用。因此，这个项目将提供深刻的机械洞察力 研究大脑如何将嗅觉信息转化为皮质气味感知。因此，我们有信心 我们将揭示嗅觉信息从球到皮层转换的逻辑，然而，逻辑 并且灯泡到梨形的转换的实现也可能在多个其他站点被实例化 在整个大脑中，通常是在深深嵌入大脑的位置，如海马体， 其中对输入和输出的访问都更具挑战性，因此在这些更深的地方执行操作 一些地区则更难解读。因此，我们乐观地认为，在探测我们的嗅觉时所学到的教训 电路将生成可概括的原则，这些原则也将适用于多个其他类似组织的系统。

Summary (Project 2: How olfactory information is transformed from bulb to cortex) Understanding how sensation is transformed into perception is a central challenge for neuroscience. Sensory information is detected by receptors that interact with the external world. This information is then routed, through multiple stages of processing, to cortical sensory areas, where perception first emerges. In this project we take advantage of the relatively “shallow” organization of the rodent olfactory system to determine how odor infor- mation is directly transformed from olfactory bulb to piriform cortex; essentially, examining the transformation of sensory representations of the olfactory input in the bulb to cortical representations of the olfactory percept within a single stage of processing. To do this, we will combine the technical expertise of the Franks Lab (Duke Uni- versity) at recording and analyzing activity of large populations of piriform neurons, with the expertise of Rinberg Lab (New York University) at patterned optogenetic activation of olfactory bulb glomeruli. Combining our efforts provides us the unique opportunity to directly activate defined areas of olfactory bulb (i.e. Input) while recording from populations of neurons in piriform cortex (i.e. Output). This provides a unique opportunity to directly and systematically determine how olfactory information is transformed from an elemental sensory representation in bulb into a holistic perceptual representation in cortex. We will then use a variety of molecular genetic tools to selectively disrupt specific components of this circuit, which will reveal the distinct cellular operations that each component plays in implementing this transformation. This project will therefore provide deep mechanistic insight into how the brain transforms olfactory sensory information into cortical odor percepts. Thus, we are confident that we will reveal the logic of the transformation of olfactory information from bulb to cortex However, the logic and implementation of the bulb-to-piriform transformation is also likely to be instantiated at multiple other sites throughout the brain, and often at sites that are deeply embedded within the brain, such as the hippocampus, where access to both the Input and Output are more challenging, and so operations performed at these deeper areas are more difficult to interpret. We are therefore optimistic that lessons learned while probing our olfactory circuit will generate generalizable principles that will also apply to multiple other, similarly organized systems.