Local distribution of odor responsivities of mouse olfactory receptor neurons.

The local distribution of odor responsivity was studied in isolated mouse olfactory neurons retaining their original spatial relationships in intact tissue. The selectivity for three odorants and population of responsive cells were estimated from the odor-induced increase in cytoplasmic calcium. It was found that cells with different odor selectivities coexisted with a shorter distance than cells of the same type. Cells with a similar odor responsivity were arranged somewhat more densely than a complete random distribution. The results indicated the coexistence of different subtypes of odor responsive cells in the septal epithelium with sparse clustering of similarly responsive cells.