Investigation of Neurophysiological Changes during Olfactory Habituation in Drosophila melanogaster

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Investigation of Neurophysiological Changes during Olfactory Habituation in Drosophila melanogaster Isabell Twick1*, John A. Lee1 and Mani Ramaswami1, 2 1 Trinity College Dublin, Ireland 2 National Centre for Biological Science, India Brain systems filter irrelevant sensory information. Habituation to inconsequential stimuli allows salient stimuli to be selectively broadcasted to attentional, emotional, and learning systems. Individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder are impaired in habituation processes. This defect could contribute causally to stimulus hypersensitivity and altered salience mapping. Despite its importance, habituation mechanisms are poorly understood. Both, humans and fruit flies show habituation to odour stimuli. As their olfactory systems are remarkably conserved, Drosophila melanogaster with its genetic tools and well-defined olfactory circuitry is ideal to reveal conserved mechanisms of olfactory habituation (Twick et al., 2014) . Genetic and behavioral experiments in the Ramaswami lab suggest that continuous exposure to an odorant results in enhanced inhibitory transmission onto projection neurons activated by the odorant (Das, et al., 2011; Ramaswami, 2014). However, this simple model for habituation still needs to be tested on the basis of neurophysiological observations and further experiments will be required to elucidate potential mechanisms. My aim is to test and elaborate this enhanced inhibition model through experiments, which directly assess neurophysiological changes that occur during olfactory habituation. I have established a calcium imaging protocol that allows me to study changes in neuronal activity in a living preparation. Using this protocol I have shown alterations in the spatio-temporal activation patterns of a range of olfactory neuronal types after continuous odour exposure. I will continue to address whether and how the neuromodulator dopamine suppresses neurophysiological changes associated with olfactory habituation as indicated by behavioral experiments. Acknowledgements We thank Ronald Calabrese for insightful discussions on neuronal dynamics and circuitries and his advice and help with our experimental set up. References Twick I, Lee JA, Ramaswami M (2014) "Chapter 1 - Olfactory Habituation in Drosophila-Odor Encoding and its Plasticity in the Antennal Lobe." in Progress in Brain Research: Odor Memory and Perception, eds E. Barkai and D. Wilson (New York, NY: Elsevier), 177–203. Das S, Sadanandappa MK, Dervan A, Larkin A, Lee JA, Sudhakaran IP, Priya R, Heidari R, Holohan EE, Pimentel A, Gandhi A, Ito K, Sanyal S, Wang JW, Rodrigues V, Ramaswami M (2011) Plasticity of local GABAergic interneurons drives olfactory habituation. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 108:646–654. Ramaswami M (2014) Network Plasticity in Adaptive Filtering and Behavioral Habituation. Neuron 82:1216-1229. Keywords: habituation, Drosophila, antennal lobe, spatiotemporal code, Olfaction, calcium imaging, Olfactory Habituation, local interneurons Conference: Neuroscience Ireland Young Neuroscientists Symposium 2014 , Dublin, Ireland, 20 Sep - 20 Sep, 2014. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Early Career Neuroscience Citation: Twick I, Lee JA and Ramaswami M (2014). Investigation of Neurophysiological Changes during Olfactory Habituation in Drosophila melanogaster. Front. Neurosci. Conference Abstract: Neuroscience Ireland Young Neuroscientists Symposium 2014 . doi: 10.3389/conf.fnins.2014.87.00042 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 19 Sep 2014; Published Online: 19 Sep 2014. * Correspondence: Miss. Isabell Twick, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland, twicki@tcd.ie Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Isabell Twick John A Lee Mani Ramaswami Google Isabell Twick John A Lee Mani Ramaswami Google Scholar Isabell Twick John A Lee Mani Ramaswami PubMed Isabell Twick John A Lee Mani Ramaswami Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.