Organization of a primitive memory: olfaction.
I present a tentative, and schematic, picture of the olfaction storage system in early mammalians: (i) how the excitation trains from the olfactory bulb excite selectively N types of cells in the piriform cortex and (ii) how these cells transfer their information to a storage area. Simple size and connectivity requirements impose that each odor is stored in a very small cluster of approximately 3 neurons. This surprising result holds even if the model parameters are strongly altered (e.g., if N = 10(3) rather than 10(2)).
de Gennes
P-G
PG
Physique de la Matière Condensée, Collège de France, 75231 Paris Cedex 05, France. pgg@curie.fr
D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D008322:Mammals / Q000502:physiology* / Q000523:psychology*; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009833:Olfactory Pathways / Q000502:physiology; D017966:Pyramidal Cells / Q000502:physiology; D012903:Smell / Q000502:physiology*