Glycogen phosphorylase activity in the olfactory bulb of the young rat.

The activity of glycogen phosphorylase, the enzyme that controls glycogen breakdown, was histochemically mapped in the olfactory bulbs of 19-day-old rats. The effect of early odor experience on subsequent olfactory bulb phosphorylase activity was also examined. The highest level of phosphorylase staining in the bulb (and seemingly the highest in the brain) was in the glomerular layer, followed by the external plexiform, internal plexiform, granule cell, and olfactory nerve layers. Virtually no activity was visible in the large output neurons of the bulb, mitral, and tufted cells. Early peppermint odor experience, previously shown to increase metabolic activity in specific glomerular foci as measured by 2-deoxyglucose uptake, had no apparent effect on glomerular-layer phosphorylase activity. In some odor-familiar animals, however, patches of activity were seen in the internal plexiform layer in the area of the bulb where foci of high deoxyglucose uptake are seen in response to peppermint. The patches were directly in line with modified glomerular clusters often seen to underlie foci of enhanced deoxyglucose uptake. The existence of particularly heavy activity in the peripheral third of the glomerular layer, where glycogen-containing modified Schwann cells have been localized, raises the possibility that the glomerular-layer activity is at least partially glial in origin. Finally, because of its rich noradrenaline and serotonin innervation and high density of insulin receptors, the olfactory bulb is proposed as a model system to study the interaction of glycogen/glucose metabolism with neural activity in a relatively well-defined neuronal circuit.