Sensory systems transform the external world into time-varying spike trains. What features of spiking activity are used to guide behavior? In the mouse olfactory bulb, inhalation of different odors leads to changes in the set of neurons activated, as well as when neurons are activated relative to each other (synchrony) and the onset of inhalation (latency). To explore the relevance of each mode of information transmission, we probed the sensitivity of mice to perturbations across each stimulus dimension (i.e., rate, synchrony, and latency) using holographic two-photon optogenetic stimulation of olfactory bulb neurons with cellular and single-action-potential resolution. We found that mice can detect single action potentials evoked synchronously across <20 olfactory bulb neurons. Further, we discovered that detection depends strongly on the synchrony of activation across neurons, but not the latency relative to inhalation.

感觉系统将外部世界转变为随时间变化的尖峰列车。尖峰活动的哪些特征用于指导行为？在小鼠嗅球中，吸入不同气味会导致激活的神经元组发生变化，以及何时激活神经元相对于彼此（同步）和吸入的开始（潜伏期）。为了探索每种信息传输模式的相关性，我们使用具有细胞和单作用的嗅球神经元的全息双光子光遗传学刺激来探索小鼠对每个刺激维度（即速率、同步性和潜伏期）的扰动的敏感性-潜在的解决方案。我们发现小鼠可以检测到<20 个嗅球神经元同步诱发的单个动作电位。更远，