Neuromorphic Olfaction

178 Neuromorphic Olfaction

ORNs expressing the same OR type converge onto one glomerulus and rely on a

lower level of convergence, which is functionally associated with heightening the

system’s sensitivity to stimuli and increasing the signal- to- noise ratio by averaging

out uncorrelated noise (Laurent 1999).

The secondary representation of an olfactory stimulus arises in the population

of second- order olfactory principal neurons—mitral and tufted (MT) cells that also

project to the next stage, the OC. They have single primary dendrites that terminate

in one glomerulus each and several secondary dendrites that innervate the respec-

tive neighborhood ...