Recent evidence suggests that suppression of electrical activity, with the likely reduction of energy use, provides a necessary strategy for prolonged anoxic tolerance of turtle brain. The present study was aimed toward defining mechanisms underlying anoxia-induced suppression of electrical activity in turtle brain. Goals were to determine whether effects of anoxia were selective to excitatory or inhibitory processes and to test the hypothesis that enhanced inhibition underlies suppression of orthodromic field potentials in olfactory bulb. Amplitudes of "conditioning" and "test" responses, provoked by pairs of stimulus pulses to the olfactory nerve, were evaluated before, during, and after anoxic insults in the brains of turtles anesthetized with pentobarbital sodium. Suppression of conditioning responses was proportionally greater than that of test responses, indicating that inhibition was decreased and that enhanced inhibitory activity is not responsible for suppression of field potentials in turtle olfactory bulb during anoxia. When normoxia was restored, conditioning responses recovered but test responses remained suppressed. These data confirm that the inhibitory effect of a conditioning pulse on responses to a second pulse of stimulation results from a recurrent circuit and suggest that anoxia-induced changes in field potentials are independent of this recurrent circuit. Enhanced inhibition during the early period of recovery after anoxic insults may provide advantages for restoring energy status and cell physiology by suppressing electrical activity and energy use.