TY  - JOUR
A1  - Niewalda, Thomas
A1  - Völler, Thomas
A1  - Eschbach, Claire
A1  - Ehmer, Julia
A1  - Chou, Wen-Chuang
A1  - Timme, Marc
A1  - Fiala, André
A1  - Gerber, Bertram
T1  - A Combined Perceptual, Physico-Chemical, and ImagingApproach to ‘Odour-Distances’ Suggests a CategorizingFunction of the Drosophila Antennal Lobe
N2  - How do physico-chemical stimulus features, perception, and physiology relate? Given the multi-layered and parallel architecture of brains, the question specifically is where physiological activity patterns correspond to stimulus features and/ or perception. Perceived distances between six odour pairs are defined behaviourally from four independent odour recognition tasks. We find that, in register with the physico-chemical distances of these odours, perceived distances for 3-octanol and n-amylacetate are consistently smallest in all four tasks, while the other five odour pairs are about equally distinct. Optical imaging in the antennal lobe, using a calcium sensor transgenically expressed in only first-order sensory or only second-order olfactory projection neurons, reveals that 3-octanol and n-amylacetate are distinctly represented in sensory neurons, but appear merged in projection neurons. These results may suggest that within-antennal lobe processing funnels sensory signals into behaviourally meaningful categories, in register with the physico-chemical relatedness of the odours.
KW  - Drosophila Antennal Lobe
Y1  - 2011
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-74769
ER  -