The distributed circuit within the piriform cortex makes odor discrimination robust

Representations of Odor in the Piriform Cortex

Olfactory perception is initiated by the recognition of odorants by a large repertoire of receptors in the sensory epithelium. A dispersed pattern of neural activity in the nose is converted into a segregated map in the olfactory bulb. How is this representation transformed at the next processing center for olfactory information, the piriform cortex? Optical imaging of odorant responses in the ...

Associative encoding in anterior piriform cortex versus orbitofrontal cortex during odor discrimination and reversal learning.

Recent proposals have conceptualized piriform cortex as an association cortex, capable of integrating incoming olfactory information with descending input from higher order associative regions such as orbitofrontal cortex (OFC). If true, encoding in piriform cortex should reflect associative features prominent in these areas during associative learning involving olfactory cues. To test this hyp...

Odor-intensity coding in the anterior piriform cortex.

The primary olfactory cortex is defined as the region that receives direct fiber projection from the olfactory bulb (OB). The piriform cortex (PC) is the largest structure in the olfactory cortex. However, no ‘point to point’ anatomical connection between the OB and PC has been found (Haberly, 1998). In addition, no evidence that neurons with similar odorant preferences are located in a cluster...

Strategies for odor coding in the piriform cortex.

Neurons and circuits for odor processing in the piriform cortex.

Increased understanding of the early stages of olfaction has lead to a renewed interest in the higher brain regions responsible for forming unified 'odor images' from the chemical components detected by the nose. The piriform cortex, which is one of the first cortical destinations of olfactory information in mammals, is a primitive paleocortex that is critical for the synthetic perception of od...