Fear conditioning biases olfactory stem cell receptor fate

Abstract

AbstractThe main olfactory epithelium initiates the process of odor encoding. Recent studies have demonstrated intergenerationally inherited changes in the olfactory system in response to fear conditioning, resulting in increases in olfactory receptor frequencies and altered responses to odors. We investigated changes in the morphology of the olfactory epithelium in response to an aversive stimulus. Here, we achieve volumetric cellular resolution to demonstrate that olfactory fear conditioning increases the number of odor-encoding neurons in mice that experience odor-shock conditioning (F0),as well as their offspring(F1). We provide evidence that increases in F0 were due to biased stem cell receptor choice. Thus, we reveal dynamic regulation of the olfactory epithelium receptor composition in response to olfactory fear conditioning, providing insight into the heritability of acquired phenotypes.Graphical AbstractOne-Sentence SummaryOdor-shock pairing is inherited by naïve offspring and biases neurogenesis in the nose.HighlightsOlfactory fear conditioning leads to an increase in conditioned-odor-responsive cells in parents (F0) that is heritable (F1)Increase in conditioned-odor-responsive cells is sustained through at least 9 weeks of cell turnover in the main olfactory epitheliumOlfactory fear conditioning in F0 biases neurogenesis specifically toward conditioned-odor responsive cell fate