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Authors & Affiliations
Rafi Haddad, Or Bashan
Abstract
A central principle of most sensory cortices is that they are topographically organized- neurons close to each other have similar tuning properties, varying along a physical stimulus feature. Such an organization has not been found yet in the olfactory system. This is because odors constitute discrete objects that do not vary along a specific physical dimension. Here, we have developed a method to reveal the receptive field (RF) of anterior piriform cortex (aPC) neurons. The RF is defined as the glomeruli set that affects the recorded aPC neuron. We found that, on average, an aPC neuron RF comprises ~60 glomeruli, randomly dispersed over the OB surface without any currently discernable organization. Approximately 75% of the glomeruli in the RF provided excitatory input and 25% provided inhibitory input. Most aPC neurons could be activated when 2-3 of the glomeruli within the RF were active. Strikingly, we found that spatially close aPC neurons have similar RFs. aPC RFs either shared glomeruli or were located close to each other on the olfactory bulb surface. RF similarity decreased as distance increased between aPC neurons. Furthermore, we found that aPC odor tuning curves significantly correlate with the distance between the neurons. These results indicate that the primary olfactory cortex does adhere to an organizational principle, similar to the other sensory systems and that this organization principle is based on how it processes odor inputs from the olfactory bulb.