Department of Neurobiology, University of Pittsburgh, 200 Lothrop St, Pittsburgh, PA, 15232, USA.
Department of Biological Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University, 4400 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA, 15213, USA.
Nat Commun. 2022 Oct 19;13(1):6194. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-33967-6.
Postnatal neurogenesis provides an opportunity to understand how newborn neurons integrate into circuits to restore function. Newborn olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs) wire into highly organized olfactory bulb (OB) circuits throughout life, enabling lifelong plasticity and regeneration. Immature OSNs form functional synapses capable of evoking firing in OB projection neurons but what contribution, if any, they make to odor processing is unknown. Here, we show that immature OSNs provide odor input to the mouse OB, where they form monosynaptic connections with excitatory neurons. Importantly, immature OSNs respond as selectively to odorants as mature OSNs and exhibit graded responses across a wider range of odorant concentrations than mature OSNs, suggesting that immature and mature OSNs provide distinct odor input streams. Furthermore, mice can successfully perform odor detection and discrimination tasks using sensory input from immature OSNs alone. Together, our findings suggest that immature OSNs play a previously unappreciated role in olfactory-guided behavior.
出生后的神经发生为理解新生神经元如何整合到回路中以恢复功能提供了机会。新生的嗅觉感觉神经元 (OSN) 在整个生命周期中都会连接到高度组织化的嗅球 (OB) 回路中,从而实现终生的可塑性和再生。未成熟的 OSN 形成功能性突触,能够在 OB 投射神经元中引发放电,但它们对气味处理有何贡献尚不清楚。在这里,我们表明,未成熟的 OSN 向小鼠 OB 提供气味输入,在那里它们与兴奋性神经元形成单突触连接。重要的是,未成熟的 OSN 对气味的反应与成熟的 OSN 一样具有选择性,并在更广泛的气味浓度范围内表现出分级反应,这表明未成熟和成熟的 OSN 提供了不同的气味输入流。此外,小鼠仅使用来自未成熟 OSN 的感觉输入就可以成功执行气味检测和辨别任务。总之,我们的发现表明,未成熟的 OSN 在嗅觉引导行为中发挥了以前未被认识到的作用。