Hitoshi Sakano

University of Fukui, Japan

Title: Neural Circuit Formation and Olfactory Perception in Mice

Abstract

Odor information detected in the olfactory epithelium is converted to a topographic map of activated glomeruli in the olfactory bulb (OB). Although the arrangement of glomeruli in the OB is genetically determined, the glomerular structure is plastic and olfactory circuits can be modified by environmental odor signals. If the pups are exposed to a particular odorant during the critical period, responding glomeruli become larger recruiting the dendrites of connecting projection neurons and interneurons. This imprinting not only increases the sensitivity to the exposed odor, but also imposes the positive quality on imprinted memory. Odor information represented as an odor map in the OB is then transmitted to the olfactory cortex and amygdala for decision making to elicit behavioral responses via two distinct pathways, innate and learned. For instinctive decisions, olfactory information is directly delivered by mitral cells to the valence regions in the amygdala, while for learned decisions, odor map is conveyed by tufted cells to the anterior olfactory nucleus for identification of odors and recollection of the associated memory scene. In this presentation, I will summarize the recent progress in the study of neural circuits and odor perception in mice.

Biography

Dr. Sakano received his Ph.D. degree from Kyoto University in 1976. For his thesis work. He investigated tRNA processing by isolating the temperature-sensitive mutants of the ribozyme RNAase P in E. coli. From 1978 to 1981, he worked at Basel Institute for Immunology in Switzerland on immunoglobulin genes to solve the problem of antibody diversity. He published five Nature article papers providing the evidence for combinatorial and junctional diversification of antibody genes. He then moved to the University of California at Berkeley as Assistant Professor in 1982 and was promoted to the tenured Full Professor in 1992. He relocated to University of Tokyo in 1994 changing his research field to Neuroscience. He is currently Professor Emeritus at University of Tokyo and Professor in Neuroscience at University of Fukui.

2nd International Conference on Neurology and Brain Disorders

Hitoshi Sakano

Title: Neural Circuit Formation and Olfactory Perception in Mice

Abstract

Biography

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