Stimulus encoding during the early stages of olfactory processing: A modeling study using an artificial olfactory system

Abstract This paper addresses the issue of how efficient stimulus encoding may be carried out within the early stages of the olfactory system—in particular how a rate-coding scheme compares to the direct transmission of graded potentials in terms of the accuracy of the estimate that an ideal observer may make about the stimulus. We make use of a spiking neuronal model of the early stages of the olfactory system that is driven by fluorescent microbead chemosensors in order to compare these two coding schemes. Our results indicate how the charging time-constants present at the first stages of neuronal information processing within the olfactory bulb directly affects its ability to accurately reconstruct the stimulus.