Spatial representations of odorants in olfactory bulbs of rats and mice: similarities and differences in chemotopic organization.

ABSTRACT: In previous studies, we mapped glomerular layer 2-deoxyglucose uptake evoked by hundreds of both systematically related and chemically distinct odorants in rat olfactory bulbs. To determine which principles of chemotopic organization revealed in these studies may be more fundamental and which may be more species typical, we now have characterized patterns of responses to 30 of these odorants in mice. We found that only a few odorants evoked their multiple foci of peak activity in exactly the same locations in the two species. In mice, as in rats, odorants that shared molecular features evoked overlapping patterns, but the locations of the feature-responsive domains often differed in rats and mice. In rats, increasing carbon number within a homologous series of aliphatic odorants is general

SUBMITTER: Johnson BA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4429802 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature