Article abstract
Nature Neuroscience 11, 80 - 87 (2008)
Published online: 16 December 2007 | doi:10.1038/nn2030
Activity-dependent gating of lateral inhibition in the mouse olfactory bulb
Armen C Arevian1,2, Vikrant Kapoor2,3 & Nathaniel N Urban1,2,3
Abstract
Lateral inhibition is a circuit motif found throughout the nervous system that often generates contrast enhancement and center-surround receptive fields. We investigated the functional properties of the circuits mediating lateral inhibition between olfactory bulb principal neurons (mitral cells) in vitro. We found that the lateral inhibition received by mitral cells is gated by postsynaptic firing, such that a minimum threshold of postsynaptic activity is required before effective lateral inhibition is recruited. This dynamic regulation allows the strength of lateral inhibition to be enhanced between cells with correlated activity. Simulations show that this regulation of lateral inhibition causes decorrelation of mitral cell activity that is evoked by similar stimuli, even when stimuli have no clear spatial structure. These results show that this previously unknown mechanism for specifying lateral inhibitory connections allows functional inhibitory connectivity to be dynamically remapped to relevant populations of neurons.
- Center for Neuroscience, University of Pittsburgh, A210 Langley Hall, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260, USA.
- Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, 4400 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213, USA.
- Department of Biology, Carnegie Mellon University, 4400 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213, USA.
Correspondence to: Nathaniel N Urban1,2,3 e-mail: nurban@cmu.edu
MORE ARTICLES LIKE THIS
These links to content published by NPG are automatically generated.
NEWS AND VIEWS
Taming time in the olfactory bulbNature Neuroscience News and Views (01 Dec 1999)
A volume control for the sense of smellNature Neuroscience News and Views (01 May 2008)
See all 7 matches for News And ViewsRESEARCH
Local inhibition modulates odor-evoked synchronization of glomerulus-specific output neuronsNature Neuroscience Article (01 Jun 2002)
Regulation of synaptic timing in the olfactory bulb by an A-type potassium currentNature Neuroscience Article (01 Dec 1999)
See all 62 matches for Research
