Presentation Details
| The AOB Mitral Cells Provide a Cellular Basis for the Independent Encoding of Conspecific Sex Xubo Leng, Timothy E.Holy. Washington University in St.Louis, St.Louis, MO, USA |
Abstract
The mouse accessory olfactory bulb (AOB) processes chemosensory information carried by conspecific cues. The accessory olfactory system (AOS) is crucial for sex recognition and individual recognition. In the AOB, the sex and strain of conspecific cues are encoded at the population level, and individual AOB neurons respond to specific, and often complex, combinations of sex and strain. However, it is unclear whether and how conspecific sex is encoded independent of their strain by the AOB circuit. Here, we study the encoding of conspecific males by the AOB mitral cells in response to urine from a panel of inbred mouse strains. Using two-photon calcium imaging of the AOB in an ex-vivo “hemi-head” preparation, we report a functional type of “pan-male” AOB mitral cells that detects males regardless of their strain. We also identified several other functional types of AOB mitral cells, which have varying combinatorial patterns of activity in response to conspecifics. Interestingly, the “pan-male” mitral cell type was found more frequently in the female AOB than in the male AOB. Taken together, the evidence suggests that the AOB provides a cellular basis to encode conspecific sex independent of strain, but raises questions about whether the “pan-male” functional mitral cell type derives its activity from a similarly-tuned specialist receptor and about its apparent sexual dimorphism. More broadly, we consider the AOB’s role in conspecific recognition as a case study of how a sensory code is shaped by both biological purpose and engineering principle.
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No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author.
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