How does a mouse nose with 1,200 receptor genes wire itself into a precise sensory map, and why is that map less stereotyped than we once believed? Peter Mombaerts explores the genetics and development of olfactory circuit formation.

Subscribe for more from the Convergent Science Network podcast series.

Peter Mombaerts describes the remarkable complexity of the mouse olfactory system, where approximately 1,200 odorant receptor genes each expressed by a distinct population of sensory neurons must organize their axonal projections into roughly 3,600 glomeruli in the olfactory bulb. Using gene targeting and molecular labeling techniques, his laboratory has spent two decades investigating how this glomerular map develops and what role the receptor proteins themselves play in axon guidance and glomerular identity.

A central theme is  ...