Voluntary behaviors such as sniffing, moving, and eating require decision-making accompanied by intentional respiration. Based on the study of respiration-coherent activity of rodent olfactory networks, we infer that during the inhalation phase of respiration, olfactory cortical areas process environmental odor information and transmit it to the higher multisensory cognitive areas via feedforward pathways to comprehensively evaluate the surrounding situation. We also infer that during the exhalation phase, the higher multisensory areas generate cognitive-signals and transmit them not only to the behavioral output system but also back to the olfactory cortical areas.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGlomus tumors (or paragangliomas) are rare, benign tumors of neuroendocrine origin that appear in tissues of paraganglionic origin. This clinical entity poses a significant treatment challenge due to its proximity to critical neurovascular structures, thus the potential of morbid functional damage caused by disease progression and/or treatment approach. While surgery remains the standard of care for such cases, there has been an increasing trend toward management with radiotherapy or close observation.
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March 2024
In the mouse olfactory system, odor information is converted to a topographic map of activated glomeruli in the olfactory bulb (OB). Although the arrangement of glomeruli is genetically determined, the glomerular structure is plastic and can be modified by environmental stimuli. If the pups are exposed to a particular odorant, responding glomeruli become larger recruiting the dendrites of connecting projection neurons and interneurons.
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