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Asymmetric rostro-caudal inhibition in the primary olfactory cortex

Abstract

The importance of intracortical inhibitory circuits in setting the feature-selective spatial organization of primary sensory cortices remains controversial. To address this issue, we examined the strength of interneuron-to–pyramidal cell connections across the rat anterior piriform cortex (aPC) and found a pronounced gradient of increasing pyramidal cell inhibition along the aPC rostro-caudal axis. This functional heterogeneity could govern aPC spatial activation in response to varying odor identities and features.

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Figure 1: Asymmetric inhibition along the aPC rostro-caudal axis.
Figure 2: Caudal pyramidal cells receive stronger inhibitory input than rostral cells.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Drs. Adam Kohn, Scott Nawy and Ellen Yang for helpful input on the manuscript. This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health (NS 044399).

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V.M.L. performed and analyzed experiments. V.M.L. and D.L.P. designed the experiments and prepared the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Diana L Pettit.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Supplementary Figures 1 and 2 and Supplementary Methods (PDF 273 kb)

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Luna, V., Pettit, D. Asymmetric rostro-caudal inhibition in the primary olfactory cortex. Nat Neurosci 13, 533–535 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.2524

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