Skip to Main Content
Lawrence Cohen Lab
    YSM Home

    INFORMATION FOR

    Individual neuron activity in the olfactory system

    Using 2-photon microscopy we have been studying the activity of individual juxtaglomerular neurons in the mouse olfactory bulb in response to odorants and to activation of an invdividual odorant receptor subtype. In these experiment we have injected the brain with a calcium sensitive dye which is taken up into the cells and processes in the glomerular layer and then used 2-photon microscopy to measure changes in calcium concentration in the neuron cell bodies and in processes in the glomeruli.

    In order to determine the effect of activating a single glomerulus we used a mouse with channelrhodopsin in a single olfactory receptor type. When the olfactory epithelium was illuminated with a blue laser, we measured a signal in only one glomerulus (green in the figure). We also measured excitatory responses in many surrounding cells (red) and inhibitory responses in a small number of cells that were more widely spread (blue).

    We are presently using transgenic mice and antibody staining in an attempt to identify the responding cell types.

    We have also started looking for odorant evoked signals in piriform cortex to compare the effect of activating a single glomerulus and many glomeruli. In addition we hope to determine the input-output transformation of piriform cortex

    References

    Braubach, O.R., Tombaz, T., Homma, R., Bozza, T., Cohen, L.B., Choi. Y., (2016) Optogenetic dissection of the glomerular unit response reveals interglomerular lateral interactions. In preparation.

    Kovalchuk, Y., R. Homma, Y. Liang, A. Maslyukov, M. Hermes, T. M. Thestrup, O. Griesbeck, Y. Ninkovic, L. B. Cohen and O. Garaschuk, (2015) Rapid maturation of odorant response properties in migrating adult-born neurons of the mouse olfactory bulb. Nature Communications, 6:349, doi: 10.1038/ncomms7349. PMID:25695931

    Homma, R., Y. Kovalchuk, A. Konnerth, L.B. Cohen, and O. Garaschuk. (2013) In vivo functional properties of juxtaglomerular neurons in the mouse olfactory bulb. Frontiers in Neural Circuits, 7:23. PMC3578271.