Synaptology of the olfactory bulb of an elasmobranch fish, Sphyrna tiburo.

The ultrastructure of the elasmobranch olfactory bulb was examined in order to determine the synaptology of the olfactory circuitry in the bonnethead shark, Sphyrna tiburo. The compartmentalization of the bulb, together with the lack of mitral cell basal dendrites, suggests a different way of performing lateral communication between mitral cells of the olfactory bulb. The results show that granule cells assume an important role by directly interlinking mitral cells. A corollary of this is the segregation of the input onto the mitral cell dendritic arborization: afferent fibers synapse onto the intraglomerular mitral terminals, whereas most local circuit interactions utilize extraglomerular synapses located on the shafts and the somas of the mitral dendrites. Therefore, the elasmobranch synaptic pattern is different from that of higher vertebrates; This might represent the use of a different neural route to achieve the same processing task.