Trade-off between information format and capacity in the olfactory system

J Neurosci. 2015 Jan 28;35(4):1521-9. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3562-14.2015.

Abstract

As information about the sensory environment passes between layers within the nervous system, the format of the information often changes. To examine how information format affects the capacity of neurons to represent stimuli, we measured the rate of information transmission in olfactory neurons in intact, awake locusts (Schistocerca americana) while pharmacologically manipulating patterns of correlated neuronal activity. Blocking the periodic inhibition underlying odor-elicited neural oscillatory synchronization increased information transmission rates. This suggests oscillatory synchrony, which serves other information processing roles, comes at a cost to the speed with which neurons can transmit information. Our results provide an example of a trade-off between benefits and costs in neural information processing.

Keywords: information theory; neural coding; oscillations; synchrony.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Intramural

MeSH terms

  • Action Potentials / drug effects
  • Action Potentials / physiology*
  • Animals
  • Arthropod Antennae / cytology
  • Arthropod Antennae / physiology
  • Computer Simulation
  • Female
  • GABA-A Receptor Antagonists / pharmacology
  • Grasshoppers
  • Male
  • Models, Neurological*
  • Neural Inhibition / physiology
  • Neurons / drug effects
  • Neurons / physiology*
  • Nonlinear Dynamics
  • Odorants
  • Olfactory Bulb / cytology*
  • Olfactory Bulb / drug effects
  • Olfactory Bulb / physiology*
  • Picrotoxin / pharmacology
  • Principal Component Analysis

Substances

  • GABA-A Receptor Antagonists
  • Picrotoxin