Department of Cell and Systems Biology, University of Toronto, Toronto, M5S 3G5, Canada.
Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA.
Nat Commun. 2020 Mar 6;11(1):1246. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-15032-2.
The anterior olfactory nucleus (AON) is the initial recipient of odour information from the olfactory bulb, and the target of dense innervation conveying spatiotemporal cues from the hippocampus. We hypothesized that the AON detects the coincidence of these inputs, generating patterns of activity reflective of episodic odour engrams. Using activity-dependent tagging combined with neural manipulation techniques, we reveal that contextually-relevant odour engrams are stored within the AON and that their activity is necessary and sufficient for the behavioural expression of odour memory. Our findings offer a new model for studying the mechanisms underlying memory representations.
前嗅核（AON）是嗅球中气味信息的初始接收者，也是来自海马体的时空线索密集传入神经的靶标。我们假设 AON 检测到这些输入的一致性，产生反映情景气味记忆的活动模式。使用活动依赖性标记结合神经操作技术，我们揭示了与上下文相关的气味记忆在 AON 中被存储，并且其活动对于气味记忆的行为表达是必要和充分的。我们的发现为研究记忆表示背后的机制提供了一个新的模型。
