Elucidation of a transmitting mechanism of the information of odorants and pheromones, based on the fMRI analysis of the olfactory bulb and the higher-order brain regions and the behavior analysis

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15H04489
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Applied biochemistry
• Research Institution: Kumamoto University
• Principal Investigator: Terasawa Hiroaki 熊本大学, 大学院生命科学研究部(薬), 教授 (10300956)
• Co-Investigator(Renkei-kenkyūsha): YOSHINAGA SOSUKE 熊本大学, 大学院生命科学研究部(薬), 講師 (00448515) ; TOUHARA Kazushige 東京大学, 大学院農学生命科学研究科, 教授 (00280925)
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: 情報伝達 / 匂い / フェロモン / MRI

Outline of Final Research Achievements

For the BOLD (Blood Oxygenation Level-Dependent)-based functional MRI analyses, a technique to extract the MR signal changes that synchronize periodical and repetitive olfactory stimulations was applied. As a result, we succeeded in higher sensitive detection of the mouse brain regions responding to each odorant or pheromone stimulation. We also developed an automatic olfactory stimulation apparatus to handle many kinds of odorants and pheromones. The fMRI development and optimization of the measuring and analytical techniques and the apparatus during this project paved the way to comprehensively analyze responses to odorants and pheromones with higher sensitivity.

Free Research Field

構造生物学，イメージング