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This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) All Versions of this Article: 581/2/567    most recent jphysiol.2007.130518v1 Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Manzini, I. Articles by Schild, D. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Manzini, I. Articles by Schild, D. Related Collections Neuroscience

¹ Department of Neurophysiology and Cellular Biophysics
² DFG Research Center for Molecular Physiology of the Brain (CMPB), University of Göttingen, Humboldtallee 23, 37073 Göttingen, Germany

Glomeruli in the vertebrate olfactory bulb (OB) appear as anatomically discrete modules receiving direct input from the olfactory epithelium (OE) via axons of olfactory receptor neurons (ORNs). The response profiles with respect to amino acids (AAs) of a large number of ORNs in larval Xenopus laevis have been recently determined and analysed. Here we report on Ca²⁺ imaging experiments in a nose–brain preparation of the same species at the same developmental stages. We recorded responses to AAs of glomeruli in the OB and determined the response profiles to AAs of individual glomeruli. We describe the general features of AA-responsive glomeruli and compare their response profiles to AAs with those of ORNs obtained in our previous study. A large number of past studies have focused either on odorant responses in the OE or on odorant-induced responses in the OB. However, a thorough comparison of odorant-induced responses of both stages, ORNs and glomeruli of the same species is as yet lacking. The glomerular response profiles reported herein markedly differ from the previously obtained response profiles of ORNs in that glomeruli clearly have narrower selectivity profiles than ORNs. We discuss possible explanations for the different selectivity profiles of glomeruli and ORNs in the context of the development of the olfactory map.

(Received 15 February 2007; accepted after revision 5 March 2007; first published online 8 March 2007)
Corresponding author I. Manzini: Department of Neurophysiology and Cellular Biophysics, University of Göttingen, Humboldtallee 23, 37073 Göttingen, Germany.  Email: imanzin{at}gwdg.de