Abstract
A physiological simulation of 2.5% of the input and inhibitory neurons and 25% of the primary mitral/tufted cells in a single mammalian olfactory bulb glomerulus was constructed. This physiological simulation used the integrate-and-fire paradigm with realistic activation curves and synaptic delays. The dendritic integration incorporated non-linear interactive effects of individual cell excitatory and inhibitory post-synaptic potentials (PSPs) from both axodendritic and dendrodendritic synaptic contacts. Refractory periods for granule-cell inhibition of mitral/tufted cell activity lead to relatively fixed-frequency rhythmic activity in the glomerulus, independent of the input frequency from the olfactory nerve. Though the frequency of mitral/ tufted cell firing in bulb was approximately independent of input frequency, the number of cells active in the glomerulus was a roughly-linear function of input frequency to the glomerulus, indicating the mechanism's ability to function as a frequency-to-spatial encoder.
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Antón, P.S., Lynch, G. & Granger, R. Computation of frequency-to-spatial transform by olfactory bulb glomeruli. Biol. Cybern. 65, 407–414 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00216975
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00216975