Experience-dependent odor representations in the Drosophila mushroom body

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25430026
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Neurophysiology / General neuroscience
• Research Institution: Institute of Physical and Chemical Research
• Principal Investigator: ENDO Keita 国立研究開発法人理化学研究所, 脳科学総合研究センター, 研究員 (40425616)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 感覚情報処理 / 嗅覚 / 脳内表現 / 弁別 / カテゴリ分類 / キノコ体 / ショウジョウバエ / カルシウムイメージング

Outline of Final Research Achievements

To understand the circuit mechanisms of the olfactory system to generate odor perception, I conducted the functional calcium imaging of the intrinsic neurons in the secondary olfactory center, the mushroom body (MB) in the Drosophila brain, and compared the data with those in the primary olfactory center, the antennal lobe (AL). I found that many odorants were represented more independently in the MB, conferring downstream neurons more discriminability. In addition, many sets of odorants were also represented more independently from other odorants in the MB, allowing the downstream neurons to categorize those sets of odorants more accurately. Together, these results suggest that the MB extracts various odor features and represent them independently, allowing animals to perceive as many odorants in the nature as possible.

Free Research Field

神経情報科学