Mice know fear. And they know to fear the scent of a predator. But how do their brains quickly figure out with a sniff that a cat is nearby?
It's a complex process that starts with the scent being picked up by specific receptors in their noses. But until now it wasn't clear exactly how these scent signals proceeded from nose to noggin for neural processing.
In a study to be published in Nature (available online now to subscribers), Stanford researchers describe a new technique that makes it possible to map long-distance nerve connections in the brain. The scientists used the technique to map for the first time the path that the scent signals take from the olfactory bulb, the part of the brain that first receives signals from odor receptors in the nose, to higher centers of the mouse brain where the processing is done.
"No one could trace signals across neural connections to a specific type of neuron at a specific location before," said biology Professor Liqun Luo. This is Luo's first study of the mouse olfactory system, but his lab has spent 10 years studying olfactory pathways in the fruit fly. Because mouse brains are so much larger and more complex that those of flies, Luo and postdoctoral researcher Kazunari Miyamichi had to develop an entirely new experimental technique.
These techniques can be used to do more than just study how mice smell. "The tools we've developed can be applied to trace neural connections of any part of the nervous system," Luo said. The tools could be used to understand how mouse brains process information from their other senses, or how the brain controls movement. The tools could also be adapted for use in rats and other mammalian species, he said.
To trace the neural pathways, the researchers injected mouse brains with two viruses, one after the other.
The researchers first injected a low-grade virus into the higher centers of a mouse brain, where it infected near
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| Contact: Louis Bergeron louisb3@stanford.edu 650-725-1944 Stanford University Source:Eurekalert |
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