Authors
Serantes, D., Gallo, D., Garcia, A., Gonzalez, J., Mendoza, M., Lagos, P., Torterolo, P., Cavelli, M. L.
Abstract
Disconnection from the external world is a defining feature of sleep. Although most models attribute sensory gating to thalamocortical mechanisms, the olfactory system-bypassing the thalamus-offers a unique window into earlier stages of sensory disconnection. Here, we combine chronic and acute recordings in rodents to test whether nasal sensory inputs are internalized during sleep. We show that respiration-locked potentials and gamma activity in the olfactory bulb are strongly modulated by brain state: they diminish during sleep and reappear during wakefulness and cortical activation. This gating occurs independently of respiratory dynamics and arises near the first synapse of the olfactory pathway. Finally, we find that neocortical slow-wave activity correlates with reduced olfactory entrainment, with coupling progressively vanishing as sleep deepens. These findings reveal a sleep-dependent sensory gating mechanism at early stages of a non-thalamic pathway, providing new insights into the neural substrates of sensory disconnection during sleep.
Preprint server:
bioRxiv
The authors list and abstract were imported from bioRxiv on 07 Nov 2025.
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