Olfactory learning and changes in early olfactory processing in Drosophila melanogaster brain

DUARTE LAUTARO; NICOLAS PIREZ; LOCATELLI, FERNANDO FEDERICO

Congreso; Congreso de la Sociedad Argentina de Neurociencias; 2022

Sociendad Argentina de Neurociencias

Odorants are detected by olfactory receptorneurons (ORNs) that project to the antennal lobe (AL), the first olfactory neuropilin the insect brain. Once in the AL, ORNs make synaptic contacts with: i)projection neurons (PNs) that send olfactory information to other brain areas;and ii) local neurons (LNs) that form a dense network of lateral interactionswithin the AL. Anatomical and functional studies indicate that this localnetwork redistributes sensory information, presumably to enhance perception ofmeaningful odors. In this project we investigate the role of theGABAergic interactions in relation to learning dependent neural plasticity inthe AL. For that aim, first weperformed calcium imaging of odorant evoked responses in ORN before and afterblocking GABAergic neurotransmission to reveal and measure the effect of theinhibitory local interactions in odor representations. Next, wetested how experience alters the representation of a binary mixture in whichone of its constituents is subject to aversive learning. Preliminary resultsshow that the representation of the mixture in the antennal lobe changes afteran aversive learning in a way that the learned odor becomes more evident. Futureexperiments are directed to evaluate whether blocking the LNs activity using temperaturesensitive shibire impairs learningdependent changes and the ability to detect the learned odor.