SPATIAL PATTERNING AND INFORMATION CODING IN THE OLFACTORY SYSTEM

The ability of mammals to discriminate thousands of structurally diver se odorants appears to derive from the existence of a multigene family that encodes similar to 1000 different odorant receptors. Recent stud ies have used this family to explore how the olfactory system organize s sensory information. These studies reveal striking patterns of organ ization suggesting that incoming sensory information is first broadly organized in the nose and is then transformed in the olfactory bulb in to a stereotyped and highly organized spatial map.