Odor Coding in Projection Neurons of the Honeybee Brain

Open Access
Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Olfactory stimuli are coded by a spatio-temporal pattern of activity at the primary level of sensory integration, the olfactory bulb in vertebrates and the antennal lobe (AL) in insects (Hildebrand and Shepherd, 1997; Galizia and Menzel, 2000), indicating that multiple glomeruli encode particular chemical compounds as well as odor mixtures. A glomerular activity pattern may be translated into a cross-fiber-activity pattern in relay neurons (projection neurons, PN) enriched by temporal components, e.g. synchrony effects of spike activity (Laurent, 2003). In all studied insects, the inner antenno-cerebral tract (in honeybees, the median antennocerebral tract, m-ACT), connects the mushroom body (MB) and the lateral horn (LH) with the AL. Similarly, axons of the outer antenno-cerebral tract (in bees, the lateral ACT, l-ACT) innervates the LH and MB but in a reverse sequence: first the LH and then the lip region of the MB calyces. A third bundle of axons, called the mediolateral ACT, also innervates the LH and larger parts of the LH, but not the calyces. This third bundle of PNs will not be dealt with here.

This publication has 2 references indexed in Scilit: