Simple Summary In this work, we imaged the neuronal activity in the peripheral olfactory
system of honey bees, the antennal lobes. Instead of the conventional analysis that focuses
on the activity patterns in the network nodes, the glomeruli, we present a new approach that
analyzes the causal connections between glomeruli. Our analysis shows that such links are
present even in the absence of olfactory stimulation and that, upon exposure to an odor
pulse, the connectivity increases and the structure of the connections becomes odorant …

Odorant processing presents multiple parallels across animal species, and insects became
relevant models for the study of olfactory coding because of the tractability of the underlying
neural circuits. Within the insect brain, odorants are received by olfactory sensory neurons
and processed by the antennal lobe network. Such a network comprises multiple nodes,
named glomeruli, that receive sensory information and are interconnected by local
interneurons participating in shaping the neural representation of an odorant. The study of …