Strategy for a statistical analysis of odour influence on the mammalian olfactory bulb responsiveness

This paper proposes a global strategy for statistical analysis of odour influence on the responsiveness of the mammalian olfactory bulb, the first relay of the olfactory pathway. Experiments were performed on 86 mitral cells recorded in 17 anaesthetized freely breathing rats. Five pure odours and their binary mixture were used. The spontaneous activity and odour-evoked responses of the cells were characterized by their temporal distribution of activity along the respiratory cycle, i.e. by cycle-triggered histograms. Several statistical analyses were performed to describe the influence of binary odour mixtures and, especially, to detect a possible dominance of one component of the mixture.