Title
Cholinergic modulation of sensory representations in the olfactory bulb.
Abstract
We present a computational model of the mammalian olfactory bulb (OB) designed to investigate how cholinergic inputs modulate olfactory sensory representations. The model integrates experimental data derived from diverse physiological studies of cholinergic modulation of OB circuitry into a simulation of bulbar responses to realistic odorants. Experimentally-observed responses to a homologous series of odorants (unbranched aliphatic aldehydes) were simulated; realistic cholinergic inputs to the OB model served to increase the discriminability of the bulbar responses generated to very similar odorants. This simulation predicted, correctly, that missing cholinergic inputs to the OB would result in greater generalization between similar aliphatic aldehydes. Based on the assumption that the overlap between the neural representations of two sensory stimuli is predictive of their perceptual similarity, we tested this prediction in a behavioral experiments with rats. We show that, indeed, rats with selective lesions of cholinergic neurons that project to the OB and cortex discriminate less well between aliphatic aldehydes with similar carbon chain lengths than do rats that received sham lesions.
Year
DOI
Venue
2002
10.1016/S0893-6080(02)00061-8
Neural Networks
Keywords
Field
DocType
olfactory bulb,homologous series,acetylcholine,odorants,bulbar response,lateral inhibition,cholinergic input,feedback inhibition,rat,realistic cholinergic input,aliphatic aldehydes,cholinergic neuron,ob circuitry,sensory representation,missing cholinergic input,ob model,behavior,computational modeling,cholinergic modulation,computational model,horizontal limb of the diagonal band of broca,computer model
Central nervous system,Olfactory bulb,Olfactory system,Neuroscience,Cholinergic,Lateral inhibition,Artificial intelligence,Stimulus (physiology),Sensory system,Machine learning,Mathematics,Cholinergic neuron
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
15
4-6
0893-6080
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
3
0.66
1
Authors
2
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Christiane Linster16630.43
Thomas A. Cleland2386.56