Topic: two photon Ca2+ imaging

Odors evoke distinct patterns of neural activity across different concentrations, both at the input level of olfactory sensory neurons (OSN) and glomeruli, as well as the next level, mitral/tufted cells (MTCs). What features of these patterns carry invariant information about odor identity and what are the neural mechanisms defining these features? To address this question, we designed an all-optical system to monitor the activity of many glomeruli and MT cells with high temporal resolution and developed an optogenetic method for establishing functional connectivity between glomeruli and MTCs.

Intellectual Disability-Autism spectrum disorder (ID-ASD) are complex neurodevelopmental diseases characterized by a wide spectrum of deficits in cognitive, social and adaptive functions. Among the X-linked gene associate to ASD-ID, OPHN1 encodes a Rho GTPase-activating protein (Rho-GAP) expressed in neurons and non-neuronal cells, during development and in adulthood, in brain areas with a high degree of plasticity, such as the cortex, the hippocampus, and the olfactory bulb (OB). Several evidence indicate that part of the ID-ASD pathology can be ascribed to defects in synaptic morphology and