Il giorno venerdì 22 dicembre 2023, ore 09:30, aula emiciclo, 1° piano Edificio Q, si terrà un seminario tenuto dal Dr. Paolo Lorenzon, post-doctoral scientist, Department of Biology, University of Padova.
Il titolo del seminario è "Microcircuit upon estrous-cycle dependent inhibition in the accessory olfactory bulb (AOB)".

Sexual behavior is influenced by multiple sensory inputs and it involves several brain areas, including the accessory olfactory bulb (AOB), which mainly processes information conveyed by non-volatile inputs. The activity of olfactory central structures is in turn shaped by the sensory input driven itself, and such interactions are thought to be basis of biologically relevant memories on the identity of the mating partner. However, how the sexual activity holds sway the properties of the AOB neuronal network remains largely unexplored. Here we combine extra- and intracellular in vivo recordings in freely breathing mice in order to evaluate the effects of artificial vagino-cervical stimulation (aVCS) on the activity of the AOB network itself. We found that aVCS caused an initial, stimulus-locked, adapting activation of AOB principal neurons via norepinephrine, which was followed by a prolonged spike silencing. Whereas the initial activation was detectable in both estrus and diestrus stages (the phases of the ovarian cycle with higher and lower sexual receptivity, respectively), the spike silencing was restricted only during the estrus phase. The spontaneous activity was also affected by hormonal cycle, with a more pronounced propensity to fire as bursts of action potentials during estrus. Finally, aVCS produced a tonic increase of the ongoing activity in diestrus that was not observable in estrus, consistent with a stronger recruitment of inhibitory component of AOB circuitry. Our results unravel that the synaptic effects of sexual stimulation on AOB circuit are estrous-cycle dependent, and largely inhibitory in the phase of higher sexual receptivity. Sexually-driven synaptic inhibition is thus strengthened by sexual hormones in AOB, by a circuit mechanism that has in this way the potential to modulate the representation and saliency of incoming olfactory information.