Storace Douglas A, Cohen Lawrence B
Department of Cellular and Molecular Physiology, Yale University School of Medicine, 333 Cedar Street, New Haven, Connecticut, 06520, USA.
Center for Functional Connectomics, Korea Institute of Science and Technology, Seoul, 136-791, Republic of Korea.
Nat Commun. 2017 Jul 19;8(1):81. doi: 10.1038/s41467-017-00036-2.
Humans and other animals can recognize an odorant as the same over a range of odorant concentrations. It remains unclear whether the olfactory bulb, the brain structure that mediates the first stage of olfactory information processing, participates in generating this perceptual concentration invariance. Olfactory bulb glomeruli are regions of neuropil that contain input and output processes: olfactory receptor neuron nerve terminals (input) and mitral/tufted cell apical dendrites (output). Differences between the input and output of a brain region define the function(s) carried out by that region. Here we compare the activity signals from the input and output across a range of odorant concentrations. The output maps maintain a relatively stable representation of odor identity over the tested concentration range, even though the input maps and signals change markedly. These results provide direct evidence that the mammalian olfactory bulb likely participates in generating the perception of concentration invariance of odor quality.Humans and animals recognize an odorant across a range of odorant concentrations, but where in the olfactory processing pathway this invariance is generated is unclear. By measuring and comparing olfactory bulb outputs to inputs, the authors show that the olfactory bulb participates in generating the perception of odorant concentration invariance.
人类和其他动物能够在一系列气味浓度范围内将一种气味剂识别为相同的气味。目前尚不清楚嗅球（介导嗅觉信息处理第一阶段的脑结构）是否参与产生这种感知浓度不变性。嗅球小球是神经纤维区域，包含输入和输出过程：嗅觉受体神经元神经末梢（输入）和僧帽/簇状细胞顶端树突（输出）。脑区输入和输出之间的差异决定了该区域执行的功能。在这里，我们比较了一系列气味浓度下输入和输出的活动信号。即使输入图谱和信号发生显著变化，输出图谱在测试的浓度范围内仍保持相对稳定的气味特征表征。这些结果提供了直接证据，表明哺乳动物嗅球可能参与产生气味质量浓度不变性的感知。人类和动物能在一系列气味浓度范围内识别一种气味剂，但尚不清楚这种不变性在嗅觉处理通路的哪个部位产生。通过测量和比较嗅球的输出与输入，作者表明嗅球参与产生气味剂浓度不变性的感知。
