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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2012 Sep 22.
Published in final edited form as: Neuron. 2011 Sep 21;71(6):962–973. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2011.08.030

Figure 3. Dynamics of inhalation-driven olfactory inputs may set limits for the temporal integration of odor information.

Figure 3

A. Responses of ORN inputs evoked by an inhalation of odorant to five different glomeruli, imaged in an awake rat. Traces are ‘sniff-triggered averages’ of presynaptic calcium signals (shaded areas indicate variance around the mean response). Vertical lines below trace indicate time to half-max for input to each glomerulus. Input to different glomeruli occurs with different latencies and rise-times, over a range of ~200 msec. Modified with permission from (Carey et al, 2009). The time-scale is the same in all panels (A – D).

B. Spike histogram showing inhalation-driven response across a population of 37 MT cells recorded during sniff ‘playback’ in an anesthetized rat; the rise-time of the population response is ~ 150 msec. Modified with permission from (Carey and Wachowiak, 2011).

C. Postsynaptic currents recorded from two neuron types in a piriform cortex slice preparation evoked by a train of stimuli (5 pulses at 20 Hz) delivered to the lateral olfactory tract, which contains the axons of MT cells. Recordings are from an inhibitory layer I interneuron (L1 INT, top trace) and a pyramidal neuron (PYR, lower trace). Blue dashed trace (bottom) shows the envelope of the in vivo MT cell population response evoked by inhalation from (B). MT inputs evoked over a time-course matching the inhalation-evoked response cause depression in the interneuron and facilitation in the pyramidal neuron. Modified with permission from (Stokes and Isaacson, 2010).

D. Schematic illustrating differences in odor discrimination times for mice performing a two-odor discrimination that is ‘easy’ (pair of dissimilar monomolecular odorants) or ‘difficult’ (pair of highly similar odor mixtures). Mice take 100 – 200 msec longer to perform the ‘difficult’ discrimination, similar to the amount of time needed for inhalation-driven odor response patterns to develop fully. Modified with permission from (Abraham et al., 2004).