Neural Links Between Smell and Space

摘要

The sense of smell is an important environmental input to help guide animal behaviours, including navigation. The researchers focused on the primary olfactory cortex (or piriform cortex), which is thought to be the main region for encoding odour identity in the cortex.This study shows that neurons in the posterior piriform cortex carry a robust spatial representation of the environment. "The olfactory system is unique among the senses", said the study's senior author; Zachary Mainen, a principal investigatoi" at the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown in Portugal, "Only olfaction has direct reciprocal connections to the hippocampal system, which is involved in memory and navigation."