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1 Neuroscience Program, University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center, Aurora, Colorado, United States
2 Physiology and Biophysics, University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center, Aurora, Colorado, United States
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: nathan.schoppa{at}uchsc.edu.
The noradrenergic system is widely thought to be important for associative learning in the olfactory system through actions in the first processing structure, the main olfactory bulb (MOB). Here, we used extracellular local field potential (LFP) and patch-clamp recordings in rat MOB slices to examine NE-induced long-term changes in circuit properties that might underlie learning. During responses to patterned olfactory nerve stimulation mimicking the breathing cycle, NE induced a long-term increase in gamma frequency (30-70 Hz) synchronized oscillations. The enhancement persisted long after washout of NE (up to 70 minutes), depended on the combined actions of NE and neuronal stimulation, and appeared to be due to enhanced excitatory drive on the mitral/granule cell network that underlies rapid gamma oscillations. The last effect, increased excitation, was manifested as an increase in evoked long-lasting depolarizations (LLDs) in mitral cells. From a functional perspective, the observed long-term cellular and network changes could promote associative learning by amplifying odor-specific signals.
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S. D. Shea, L. C. Katz, and R. Mooney Noradrenergic Induction of Odor-Specific Neural Habituation and Olfactory Memories J. Neurosci., October 15, 2008; 28(42): 10711 - 10719. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
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