Odor maps in the olfactory cortex
- Zhihua Zou*,†,
- Fusheng Li‡, and
- Linda B. Buck*,†,§
- *Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Divisions of †Basic Sciences and ‡Public Health Sciences, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, 1100 Fairview Avenue North, Seattle, WA 98109
-
Contributed by Linda B. Buck, April 12, 2005
Abstract
In the olfactory system, environmental chemicals are deconstructed into neural signals and then reconstructed to form odor perceptions. Much has been learned about odor coding in the olfactory epithelium and bulb, but little is known about how odors are subsequently encoded in the cortex to yield diverse perceptions. Here, we report that the representation of odors by fixed glomeruli in the olfactory bulb is transformed in the cortex into highly distributed and multiplexed odor maps. In the mouse olfactory cortex, individual odorants are represented by subsets of sparsely distributed neurons. Different odorants elicit distinct, but partially overlapping, patterns that are strikingly similar among individuals. With increases in odorant concentration, the representations expand spatially and include additional cortical neurons. Structurally related odorants have highly related representations, suggesting an underlying logic to the mapping of odor identities in the cortex.
Footnotes
-
↵ § To whom correspondence should be addressed at: Division of Basic Sciences, A3-020, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, 1100 Fairview Avenue North, P.O. Box 19024, Seattle, WA 98109-1024. E-mail: lbuck{at}fhcrc.org.
-
Author contributions: Z.Z. and L.B.B. designed research; Z.Z. performed research; Z.Z. and F.L. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; Z.Z., F.L., and L.B.B. analyzed data; and Z.Z. and L.B.B. wrote the paper.
-
Abbreviations: OR, odorant receptor; OE, olfactory epithelium; OB, olfactory bulb; OC, olfactory cortex; APC, anterior piriform cortex.
-
Freely available online through the PNAS open access option.
- Copyright © 2005, The National Academy of Sciences
