Population imaging at subcellular resolution supports specific and local inhibition by granule cells in the olfactory bulb

Information processing in early sensory regions is modulated by a diverse range of inhibitory interneurons. We sought to elucidate the role of olfactory bulb interneurons called granule cells (GCs) in odor processing by imaging the activity of hundreds of these cells simultaneously in mice. Odor responses in GCs were temporally diverse and spatially disperse, with some degree of non-random, modular organization. The overall sparseness of activation of GCs was highly correlated with the extent of glomerular activation by odor stimuli. Increasing concentrations of single odorants led to proportionately larger population activity, but some individual GCs had non-monotonic relations to concentration due to local inhibitory interactions. Individual dendritic segments could sometimes respond independently to odors, revealing their capacity for compartmentalized signaling in vivo. Collectively, the response properties of GCs point to their role in specific and local processing, rather than global operations such as response normalization proposed for other interneurons.