Functional Plasticity of Odor Representations during Motherhood
Amit Vinograd,
Yael Fuchs-Shlomai,
Merav Stern,
Diptendu Mukherjee,
Yuan Gao,
Ami Citri,
Ian Davison,
Adi Mizrahi
Affiliations
Amit Vinograd
Department of Neurobiology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Edmond J. Safra Campus, Jerusalem 91904, Israel; The Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Edmond J. Safra Campus, Jerusalem 91904, Israel
Yael Fuchs-Shlomai
Department of Neurobiology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Edmond J. Safra Campus, Jerusalem 91904, Israel; The Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Edmond J. Safra Campus, Jerusalem 91904, Israel
Merav Stern
Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
Diptendu Mukherjee
Department of Chemical Biology, Institute of Life Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Edmond J. Safra Campus, Jerusalem 91904, Israel; The Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Edmond J. Safra Campus, Jerusalem 91904, Israel
Yuan Gao
Department of Biology, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
Ami Citri
Department of Chemical Biology, Institute of Life Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Edmond J. Safra Campus, Jerusalem 91904, Israel; The Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Edmond J. Safra Campus, Jerusalem 91904, Israel
Ian Davison
Department of Biology, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA
Adi Mizrahi
Department of Neurobiology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Edmond J. Safra Campus, Jerusalem 91904, Israel; The Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Edmond J. Safra Campus, Jerusalem 91904, Israel; Corresponding author
Summary: Motherhood is accompanied by new behaviors aimed at ensuring the wellbeing of the offspring. Olfaction plays a key role in guiding maternal behaviors during this transition. We studied functional changes in the main olfactory bulb (OB) of mothers in mice. Using in vivo two-photon calcium imaging, we studied the sensory representation of odors by mitral cells (MCs). We show that MC responses to monomolecular odors become sparser and weaker in mothers. In contrast, responses to biologically relevant odors are spared from sparsening or strengthen. MC responses to mixtures and to a range of concentrations suggest that these differences between odor responses cannot be accounted for by mixture suppressive effects or gain control mechanisms. In vitro whole-cell recordings show an increase in inhibitory synaptic drive onto MCs. The increase of inhibitory tone may contribute to the general decrease in responsiveness and concomitant enhanced representation of specific odors. : Motherhood is associated with changes in neural circuits that affect how the mother senses her surroundings. Vinograd et al. show that the olfactory bulb is a locus of plasticity. Output neurons of the bulb have elevated inhibition, and odor coding of natural odors is improved. Keywords: olfaction, plasticity, mitral cells, motherhood, two-photon, calcium imaging, inhibition
