Frontiers in Neural Circuits (Jun 2024)

Odors in space

  • Olivia McKissick,
  • Nell Klimpert,
  • Jason T. Ritt,
  • Alexander Fleischmann

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fncir.2024.1414452
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 18

Abstract

Read online

As an evolutionarily ancient sense, olfaction is key to learning where to find food, shelter, mates, and important landmarks in an animal’s environment. Brain circuitry linking odor and navigation appears to be a well conserved multi-region system among mammals; the anterior olfactory nucleus, piriform cortex, entorhinal cortex, and hippocampus each represent different aspects of olfactory and spatial information. We review recent advances in our understanding of the neural circuits underlying odor-place associations, highlighting key choices of behavioral task design and neural circuit manipulations for investigating learning and memory.

Keywords