Event Abstract Back to Event Temporal transformations in olfactory encoding promote rapid detection of natural odor fluctuations Katherine Nagel1* and Rachel Wilson1 1 Harvard Medical School, United States Natural olfactory stimuli form turbulent plumes that fluctuate rapidly in time and may provide information about the location of an odor source. However, olfactory neurons respond to odor with complex and prolonged spike dynamics that would seem unsuitable for encoding such stimuli. We used Drosophila as a model system for understanding how complex response dynamics arise in the first layer of an olfactory system and what function they might serve. Using pharmacological and genetic tools, we showed that we could obtain separate measures of transduction currents and spikes from olfactory receptor neurons (ORNs) in vivo. This revealed that ORN response dynamics arise from two non-trivial temporal transformations: one imposed by odor transduction, and one by spike generation. Odor transduction dynamics were fast, and were well-described by a model of ligand binding and receptor activation. This model was sufficient to account for differences in response dynamics across odors and receptors, asymmetries between onset and offset dynamics, and receptor-specific adaptation and recovery. Spiking dynamics were captured by a differentiating linear filter that was similar across odors and ORNs. Spike dynamics could be altered by genetic knockdown of sodium channel expression levels, suggesting that they are tightly regulated. This is consistent with Hodgkin Huxley models showing that the temporal selectivity of a neuron depends on its balance of sodium and potassium conductances and suggests that the differentiating transformation arises from known models of spike generation. In the context of rapid and intermittent natural stimuli, the transduction and spiking transformations lead to fast and highly sensitive reporting of plume encounters, while in response to longer synthetic pulses they produce more complex dynamics. Our analysis suggest that complex spike patterns in olfaction are an unavoidable consequence of the biophysics of odor transduction, coupled to adaptations for rapid encoding of transient plume encounters. Conference: Computational and Systems Neuroscience 2010, Salt Lake City, UT, United States, 25 Feb - 2 Mar, 2010. Presentation Type: Oral Presentation Topic: Oral presentations Citation: Nagel K and Wilson R (2010). Temporal transformations in olfactory encoding promote rapid detection of natural odor fluctuations. Front. Neurosci. Conference Abstract: Computational and Systems Neuroscience 2010. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnins.2010.03.00062 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 19 Feb 2010; Published Online: 19 Feb 2010. * Correspondence: Katherine Nagel, Harvard Medical School, Boston, United States, katherine_nagel@hms.harvard.edu Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Katherine Nagel Rachel Wilson Google Katherine Nagel Rachel Wilson Google Scholar Katherine Nagel Rachel Wilson PubMed Katherine Nagel Rachel Wilson Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.