Intracellular responses of olfactory bulb granule cells to stimulating the horizontal diagonal band nucleus

The effects of centrifugal afferents on membrane potentials of identified granule cells in the main olfactory bulb were studied in anaesthetized rats. Cells were located in the granule cell layer using evoked field potential profiles, and trans-synaptic activation via antidromic stimulation of output cell axon collaterals. Intracellular recordings maintained for 4–30 min showed complex spontaneous spike dis-charges and allowed characterization of the cell's input resistance, and on some occasions its morphology following intracellular injection of Lucifer Yellow. Stimulation in the nucleus of the horizontal limb of the diagonal band, but not surrounding regions, produced hyperpolarizing responses in 13 of 27 cells in the granule cell layer; four of these were morphologically identified as granule cells of two types, in five the responses had reversal potentials more negative than the resting potential, and six were identified as granule cells by monosynaptic activation from output axon collaterals. A different set of three cells in the granule cell layer responded with depolarization. The results are consistent with the inhibition of tonic activity of granule cells by the nucleus of the horizontal limb of the diagonal band, leading to disinhibition of mitral and tufted cells via dendrodendritic synapses of granule cells on mitral/tufted cell secondary dendrites.