Project Grant R01DC023588

The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders awarded Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory $957,448 on September 1, 2026, under the Research Related to Deafness and Communication Disorders program (CFDA 93.173) to investigate the structure and logic of mitral and tufted cell projections in the olfactory system using DNA barcoding and odor response profiling.

The research employs high-throughput DNA barcode sequencing-based single-cell projection mapping methods (MAPSEQ and BARSEQ) to monitor projection patterns of thousands of neurons in individual mice and discover the interplay between structure and randomness in mitral and tufted cell long-range projections as a function of their input olfactory receptor identity and odor response similarity. The work uses spatial transcriptomics to identify olfactory receptors providing inputs to specific glomeruli and determine relationships between odor responses of output mitral and tufted cells and their projections to six major olfactory bulb targets: anterior piriform cortex, posterior piriform cortex, anterior olfactory nucleus, olfactory tubercle, cortical amygdala, and lateral entorhinal cortex. The project tests the hypothesis that olfactory bulb projections and olfactory cortex architecture are structured rather than randomly connected.

The award period runs September 1, 2026, through August 31, 2031, with work performed at Cold Spring Harbor, New York. The assistance type is a Project Grant.