An olfactory pattern generator for on-demand combinatorial control of receptor activities

Si, Guangwei; Feng, Yu Chen; Samuel, Aravinthan D.T.

doi:10.1101/2021.05.31.446433

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…Although it innervates ~30 glomeruli, presenting a male fly specifically activates the arbors in the DA1 glomerulus (Figure 4G, H). This suggests that its tortuous branching allows it to act in a compartmentalized fashion, reminiscent of recent studies in larval Drosophila (Si et al, 2021) and the adult visual system (Meier and Borst, 2019). One might think that mixing olfactory signals from both antennae would make it harder to extract positional information.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Generating parallel representations of position and identity in the olfactory system

Taisz¹,

Donà²,

Münch

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Sex pheromones are key social signals in most animals. In Drosophila a dedicated olfactory channel senses a male pheromone, cis-vaccenyl acetate (cVA) that promotes female courtship while repelling males. Here we show that flies use separate cVA processing streams to extract qualitative and positional information. cVA olfactory neurons are sensitive to concentration differences in a 5 mm range around a male. Second-order projection neurons detect inter-antennal differences in cVA concentration, encoding the angular position of a male. We identify a circuit mechanism increasing left-right contrast through an interneuron which provides contralateral inhibition. At the third layer of the circuit we identify neurons with distinct response properties and sensory integration motifs. One population is selectively tuned to an approaching male with speed-dependent responses. A second population responds tonically to a male's presence and controls female mating decisions. A third population integrates a male taste cue with cVA; only a simultaneous presentation of both signals promotes female mating via this pathway. Thus the olfactory system generates a range of complex percepts in discrete populations of central neurons that allow the expression of appropriate behaviors depending on context. Such separation of olfactory features resembles the mammalian what and where visual streams.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%