The projections and odor responses of mammalian olfactory receptor neurons, as well as the physiology of the bulb's principal neurons-the mitral cells (MCs)-are known from studies in slices and anesthetized animals. In behaving rats trained to discriminate between two odors associated with different reinforcers, we examined MC responses following alternated odor-reinforcer pairings. Whereas only 11% of the recorded MCs showed changes in odor-selective firing rate during the odor-sampling phase, 94% of MCs modulated activity during specific behaviors surrounding odor sampling. These cell- and odor-selective responses were not primary sensory responses; rather, they depended (reversibly) on the predictive value of each odor. MC activity thus depends critically on efferent influences linked to the animal's experience and behavior.

Olfactory system oscillations play out with beautiful temporal and behavioral regularity on the oscilloscope and seem to scream ‘meaning’. Always there is the fear that, although attractive, these symbols of dynamic regularity might be just seductive epiphenomena. There are now many studies that have isolated some of the neural mechanisms involved in these oscillations, and recent work argues that they are functional and even necessary at the physiological and cognitive levels. However, much remains to be done for a full understanding of their functions.

Field potentials were recorded simultaneously from the olfactory bulb (OB), prepyriform cortex (PPC), entorhinal cortex (EC), and dentate gyrus (DG) of rats trained to respond to appetitively reinforced odors. Preafferent anticipatory events in the beta band (12-35 Hz) suggest transmission from EC to OB before the odorant stimulus. Gamma band (35-120 Hz) power in olfactory regions is significantly reduced during stimulus presentation as compared with high values during preafferent expectation. High coherence of OB and PPC gamma activity during the preodorant control period is interrupted before the stimulus and is followed by increased gamma coherence among OB, EC, and DG. These results suggest that olfactory perceptual processing is bidirectional and covers a wide frequency range.

Fast oscillations in neural assemblies have been proposed as a mechanism to facilitate stimulus representation in a variety of sensory systems across animal species. In the olfactory system, intervention studies suggest that oscillations in the gamma frequency range play a role in fine odor discrimination. However, there is still no direct evidence that such oscillations are intrinsically altered in intact systems to aid in stimulus disambiguation. Here we show that gamma oscillatory power in the rat olfactory bulb during a two-alternative choice task is modulated in the intact system according to task demands with dramatic increases in gamma power during discrimination of molecularly similar odorants in contrast to dissimilar odorants. This elevation in power evolves over the course of criterion performance, is specific to the gamma frequency band (65-85 Hz), and is independent of changes in the theta or beta frequency band range. Furthermore, these high amplitude gamma oscillations are restricted to the olfactory bulb, such that concurrent piriform cortex recordings show no evidence of enhanced gamma power during these high-amplitude events. Our results display no modulation in the power of beta oscillations (15-28 Hz) shown previously to increase with odor learning in a Go/No-go task, and we suggest that the oscillatory profile of the olfactory system may be influenced by both odor discrimination demands and task type. The results reported here indicate that enhancement of local gamma power may reflect a switch in the dynamics of the system to a strategy that optimizes stimulus resolution when input signals are ambiguous.

Synchronized neural activity is believed to be essential for many CNS functions, including neuronal development, sensory perception, and memory formation. In several brain areas GABA(A) receptor-mediated synaptic inhibition is thought to be important for the generation of synchronous network activity. We have used GABA(A) receptor beta3 subunit deficient mice (beta3-/-) to study the role of GABAergic inhibition in the generation of network oscillations in the olfactory bulb (OB) and to reveal the role of such oscillations in olfaction. The expression of functional GABA(A) receptors was drastically reduced (>93%) in beta3-/- granule cells, the local inhibitory interneurons of the OB. This was revealed by a large reduction of muscimol-evoked whole-cell current and the total current mediated by spontaneous, miniature inhibitory postsynaptic currents (mIPSCs). In beta3-/- mitral/tufted cells (principal cells), there was a two-fold increase in mIPSC amplitudes without any significant change in their kinetics or frequency. In parallel with the altered inhibition, there was a significant increase in the amplitude of theta (80% increase) and gamma (178% increase) frequency oscillations in beta3-/- OBs recorded in vivo from freely moving mice. In odor discrimination tests, we found beta3-/- mice to be initially the same as, but better with experience than beta3+/+ mice in distinguishing closely related monomolecular alcohols. However, beta3-/- mice were initially better and then worse with practice than control mice in distinguishing closely related mixtures of alcohols. Our results indicate that the disruption of GABA(A) receptor-mediated synaptic inhibition of GABAergic interneurons and the augmentation of IPSCs in principal cells result in increased network oscillations in the OB with complex effects on olfactory discrimination, which can be explained by an increase in the size or effective power of oscillating neural cell assemblies among the mitral cells of beta3-/- mice.

Several studies have shown that memory consolidation relies partly on interactions between sensory and limbic areas. The functional loop formed by the olfactory system and the hippocampus represents an experimentally tractable model that can provide insight into this question. It had been shown previously that odor-learning associated beta band oscillations (15-30 Hz) of the local field potential in the rat olfactory system are enhanced with criterion performance, but it was unknown if these involve networks beyond the olfactory system. We recorded local field potentials from the olfactory bulb (OB) and dorsal and ventral hippocampus during acquisition of odor discriminations in a go/no-go task. These regions showed increased beta oscillation power during odor sampling, accompanied by a coherence increase in this frequency band between the OB and both hippocampal subfields. This coherence between the OB and the hippocampus increased with the onset of the first rule transfer to a new odor set and remained high for all learning phases and subsequent odor sets. However, coherence between the two hippocampal fields reset to baseline levels with each new odor set and increased again with criterion performance. These data support hippocampal involvement in the network underlying odor-discrimination learning and also suggest that cooperation between the dorsal and ventral hippocampus varies with learning progress. Oscillatory activity in the beta range may thus provide a mechanism by which these areas are linked during memory consolidation, similar to proposed roles of beta oscillations in other systems with long-range connections.

Performance and cognitive effort in humans have recently been related to amplitude and multisite coherence of alpha (7-12 Hz) and theta (4 -7 Hz) band electroencephalogram oscillations. I examined this phenomenon in rats by using theta band oscillations of the local field potential to signify sniffing as a sensorimotor process. Olfactory bulb (OB) theta oscillations are coherent with those in the dorsal hippocampus (HPC) during odor sniffing in a two-odor olfactory discrimination task. Coherence is restricted to the high-frequency theta band (6 -12 Hz) associated with directed sniffing in the OB and type 1 theta in the HPC. Coherence and performance fluctuate on a time scale of several minutes. Coherence magnitude is positively correlated with performance in the two-odor condition but not in extended runs of single odor conditional-stimulus-positive trials. Simultaneous with enhanced OB-HPC theta band coherence during odor sniffing is a significant decrease in lateral entorhinal cortex (EC)-HPC and OB-EC coherence, suggesting that linkage of the olfactory and hippocampal theta rhythms is not through the synaptic relay from OB to HPC in the lateral EC. OB-HPC coupling at the sniffing frequency is proposed as a mechanism underlying olfactory sensorimotor effort as a cognitive process.hippocampus ͉ olfactory bulb ͉ sniffing ͉ behavior ͉ odor discrimination W ithin a given day, performance measures can change, depending on multiple factors. The neural mechanisms that underlie these performance fluctuations in motor and cognitive tasks remain unexplained, with some studies focusing on theta (4-7 Hz in humans and 4-12 Hz in rats) and alpha (7-12 Hz) oscillations as indicators of cognitive effort associated with performance in difficult tasks (1-6).The mammalian hippocampus (HPC) and olfactory bulb (OB) are distinguished by high-amplitude theta oscillations of the local field potential. Hippocampal theta rhythm (4-12 Hz in rats) has been shown to accompany locomotion and cognitive processing, and two theta subbands have been described. High-frequency theta (type 1: 6-12 Hz, atropine-resistant) is linked to locomotion, and low-frequency theta (type 2: 4-6 Hz, atropinesensitive) is seen during immobile states, sensory stimulation, and in urethane-anesthetized animals (7). In the OB, 2-to 12-Hz oscillations have been shown to follow the respiratory cycle with some deviations, and these oscillations are called ''theta'' principally because they occupy a highly overlapping frequency band with hippocampal theta oscillations (8-13).HPC theta oscillations and sniffing have been related to performance and learning in previous studies. Theta oscillatory firing of single interneurons in the HPC has been shown to be related to performance in a cognitively demanding olfactory identification task (14). Hippocampal theta oscillations have also been shown to be coherent with sniffing during the initial stages of odor contingency reversal learning (15) and with OB theta oscillations intermittently during exploratory behavior (16).In th...

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