Learning modifies odor mixtures representation in the honey bee antennal lobe

MARACHLIAN EMILIANO; LOCATELLI FERNANDO

Huerta Grande, Córdoba

Congreso; XVI congreso Anual de la Sociedad Argentina de Neurociencias; 2011

In the present work we ask, how animals extract information about key components present in complex odor mixtures. The antennal lobe is the first processing center for olfactory information in the insect brain. The local network conformed by excitatory and inhibitory local neurons transforms the olfactory information before it leaves the antennal lobe to other brain areas. The information about rewards converges with odor information in the antennal lobe network. We propose that the association between odors and reward modifies the weight of lateral inhibitions and shifts the representation of a mixture towards the representation of the more relevant components. In the present work we train animals to pure odors and perform calcium imaging in output neurons of the antennal lobes to measure neural activity patterns elicited by pure odors and the respective binary mixtures. We report results, in which we observe that the experience modifies mixture presentation. A comparison of the activity patterns elicited by the mixtures and the patterns expected based on the representation of the pure odors suggests that learning induces modification in the competitive interactions among components.