Mixture Coding and Segmentation in the Anterior Piriform Cortex

Odor-intensity coding in the anterior piriform cortex.

The primary olfactory cortex is defined as the region that receives direct fiber projection from the olfactory bulb (OB). The piriform cortex (PC) is the largest structure in the olfactory cortex. However, no ‘point to point’ anatomical connection between the OB and PC has been found (Haberly, 1998). In addition, no evidence that neurons with similar odorant preferences are located in a cluster...

Odor specificity of habituation in the rat anterior piriform cortex.

Exposure to odorants results in a rapid (<10 s) reduction in odor-evoked activity in the rat piriform cortex despite relatively maintained afferent input from olfactory bulb mitral cells. To further understand this form of cortical plasticity, a detailed analysis of its odor specificity was performed. Habituation of odor responses in anterior piriform cortex single units was examined in anesthe...

Habituation of odor responses in the rat anterior piriform cortex.

Simultaneous recordings of main olfactory bulb (MOB) and anterior piriform cortex (aPCX) neuron responses to repeated and prolonged odor pulses were examined in freely breathing, urethan-anesthetized rats. Comparisons of odor responses were made between multi-unit recordings of MOB activity and single-unit extracellular and intracellular recordings of Layer II/III aPCX neurons. Odor stimuli con...

Strategies for odor coding in the piriform cortex.

Convergence in the Piriform Cortex

How are the responses to distinct chemical features integrated to form an olfactory perceptual object? In this issue of Neuron, Davison and Ehlers show that individual piriform cortex neurons receive convergent input from up to 10% of main olfactory bulb glomeruli and are activated by specific spatial patterns of coactive glomeruli.