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Published on: February 17, 2010
How spike synchronization among olfactory neurons can contribute to sensory discrimination
1Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA. cl243@cornell.edu
Abstract:
Recent studies in honeybees have demonstrated that, when odor-evoked action potentials in antennal lobe neurons are pharmacologically desynchronized, the bees are impaired in their ability to discriminate chemically similar odor stimuli. Using a reduced computational model of the honeybee antennal lobe, we show how changes in spike-synchronization properties alone, independent of changes in overall spike-discharge rate or differences in activity levels among responsive neurons, can produce changes in associative learning similar to those observed experimentally.
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