Encoding in a network of sparsely connected spiking neurons: application to locust olfaction

Electrophysiological measurements in the locust antennal lobe have suggested that the odor could be encoded spatially and temporally during the network oscillation in the firing patterns of the excitatory cells. Interested by the mechanisms responsible for such a spatial code we have found that, for a sufficient level of inhibition, strong network oscillations appear in corresponding networks of excitatory and inhibitory spiking neurons during which a part of the excitatory cells fire at stimulus-dependent and precise times. This particular behavior is then investigated to unravel the underlying encoding properties.