What do electrophysiological studies tell us about processing at the olfactory bulb level?

International audienceElectrophysiological recordings performed in the mammalian olfactory bulb (OB) aimed at deciphering neural rules supporting neural representation of odors. In spite of a fairly large number of available data, no clear picture emerges yet in the mammalian OB. This paper summarizes some important findings and underlines the fact that difference in experimental conditions still represents a major limitation to the emergence of a synthetic view. More specifically, we examine to what extent the absence or the presence of anaesthetic influence OB neuronal responsiveness. In addition, we will see that recordings of either single cell activity or populational activity provide quite different pictures. As a result some experimental approaches provide data underlying sensory properties of OB neurons while others emphasize their capabilities of integrating incoming sensory information with attention, motivation and previous experience