(provided by candidate): The mammalian olfactory bulb is an ideal system to study general principles of sensory coding. Olfactory bulb circuits convert simple monotonic sensory input from olfactory receptor neurons into complex spatiotemporal patterns of mitral cell activation that are relayed to higher order brain centers. Very little is known about how the olfactory bulb produces this transformation. This application seeks to investigate the intrinsic electrophysiological properties of mitral cells-the principal output neurons of the olfactory bulb-and analyze how these properties pattern mitral cell responses. Using electrophysiological approaches, we will address two key questions: 1) what are the kinetic properties and molecular identity of slowly inactivating K+currents in mitral cells; and 2) how do recurrent and lateral synaptic inhibition interact with intrinsic currents in mitral cells to modulate spike timing and action potential propagation? We expect that the results from these experiments will shed important light on how the olfactory bulb processes sensory information, unveil general principles of how local circuits in the brain interact to perform computational tasks, and aid in the development of paradigms for therapeutic electrical stimulation to treat neurological diseases.
| Balu, Ramani; Strowbridge, Ben W (2007) Opposing inward and outward conductances regulate rebound discharges in olfactory mitral cells. J Neurophysiol 97:1959-68 |
| Balu, Ramani; Pressler, R Todd; Strowbridge, Ben W (2007) Multiple modes of synaptic excitation of olfactory bulb granule cells. J Neurosci 27:5621-32 |
