Stereotypic and random patterns of connectivity in the larval mushroom body calyx of Drosophila.

ABSTRACT: The larval brain of Drosophila is a useful model to study olfactory processing because of its cellular simplicity. The early stages of central olfactory processing involve the detection of odor features, but the coding mechanisms that transform them into a representation in higher brain centers is not clear. Here we examine the pattern of connectivity of the main neurons that process olfactory information in the calyx (dendritic region) of the mushroom bodies, a higher brain center essential for associative olfactory learning. The larval calyx has a glomerular organization. We generated a map of calyx glomeruli, using both anatomical criteria and the pattern of innervation by subsets of its input neurons (projection neurons), molecularly identified by GAL4 markers. Thus, we show that proje

SUBMITTER: Masuda-Nakagawa LM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1323213 | biostudies-literature | 2005 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature