In contrast to other sensory systems, very little is known about information processing in the olfactory system. In part, this stems from a paucity of research that has been conducted on the physiological nature of primary olfactory cortex (piriform cortex). The experiments in this proposal will use electrophysiological and molecular biological to answer fundamental questions regarding the functional organization of olfactory cortex. In particular, the apparent spatial organization of input fibers to piriform cortex suggests, at least at early stages of cortical processing, a spatial representation of odors is preserved, despite the lack of evidence for such organization in some previous studies. Systematic in vitro multi-electrode electrophysiology is planned to investigate odor-specific responses in piriform cortex to determine the functional organization of this area. Experiments to determine whether groups of cells exhibit a response-based topography, using in situ hybridization to visualize immediate early gene expression, are planned to support flu results of electrophysiology studies. Results from the proposed experiments will help to define the nature of olfactory stimulus representation at the cortical level, and explore the functional roles of anatomically-defined subregions in piriform cortex.
