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| Poster #Olfactory Bulb Olfactory Bulb Activity And Active Sniffing During Naturalistic Foraging In Freely Moving Mice |
| Jesse A. Smith1, Kevin Bolding2, Jiayue Tai3, Ian Davison1 1Boston University, Boston, MA, United States 2Monell Chemical Senses center, Philadelphia, PA, United States 3Tufts University, Medford, MA, United States |
Understanding the critical role of the olfactory system in guiding naturalistic foraging behaviors promises to provide fundamental insights into sensory perception and ecological adaptations. Mice rely heavily on their olfactory senses to navigate complex environments and locate potential food sources. Although odor-evoked activity has been intensively studied in head-fixed animals, little is known about the dynamic sensory signals acquired by freely moving animals when actively sampling their environment. To address the gap in knowledge about real-time olfactory sensory-motor strategies, we engineered a novel large-area miniscope allowing us to image glomerular activity across both hemispheres of the main olfactory bulb (MOB). MOB imaging in freely moving animals revealed that sensory information was largely confined to distances within 10 cm of the odor source. Average glomerular activation increased with proximity to odor sources, allowing us to map well-studied concentration-dependent coding onto spatial measures. Interestingly, glomerular activity often showed directional tuning near the odor source, and these signals predicted future turning behavior. We used implanted thermistors to directly relate sniffing activity to behavior and neural activity, revealing that animals only obtain sensory information on a relatively sparse subset of sniff samples. Integrating sniff and imaging measurements should help reveal how active sampling strategies inform moment-to-moment navigational decisions during odor source localization. |