fMRI visualization of transient activations in the rat olfactory bulb using short odor stimulations

Odor-evoked activity in the olfactory bulb displays both spatial and temporal organization. The difficulty when assessing spatio-temporal dynamics of olfactory representation is to find a method that reconciles the appropriate resolution for both dimensions. Imaging methods based on optical recordings can reach high temporal and spatial resolution but are limited to the observation of the accessible dorsal surface. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) may be useful to overcome this limitation as it allows recording from the whole brain. In this study, we combined ultra fast imaging sequence and short stimulus duration to improve temporal resolution of odor-evoked BOLD responses. Short odor stimulations evoked high amplitude BOLD responses and patterns of activation were similar to those obtained in previous studies using longer stimulations. Moreover, short odor exposures prevented habituation processes. Analysis of the BOLD signal time course in the different areas of activation revealed that odorant response maps are not static entities but rather are temporally dynamic as reported by recent studies using optical imaging. These data demonstrated that fMRI is a non-invasive method which could represent a powerful tool to study not only the spatial dimension of odor representation but also the temporal dimension of information processing.