Detection of odor-specific response latencies in the honeybee olfactory system
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1
Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
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2
Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Germany
Recent evidence suggests that rapid processing not only occurs in the visual and auditory but also in the olfactory pathway [1]. In this concept, the information a neuron transmits about the stimulus is encoded in its response latency rather than in its response rate. In previous work [2] we have shown that projection neurons in the honeybee olfactory system exhibit stimulus-specific response latencies. However, it is still unclear if the temporal information reflects a relevant temporal code and whether it carries over to the responses of downstream neurons. Here, we analyzed response latencies of alpha-lobe extrinsic neurons from the honeybee mushroom body as recorded extracellularly in awake and behaving animals. These neurons represent the read-out of the Kenyon cell network of the mushroom body. We specifically asked (i) if response latencies were odor–specific in individual neurons of naive animals, and (ii) if response latencies changed as a consequence of classical conditioning. As a measure for the response latencies in single trials we applied a threshold criterion which assumes Poisson statistics for the firing of individual neurons [3]. In the majority of our recordings from untrained bees we did not find any relation between odor identity and response latency, suggesting that odor-specific latency tuning is extinct at the stage of mushroom body extrinsic neurons. In our recordings from trained animals we find that response latencies always decreased for the reward-associated odor (CS+) whereas for the CS- and control odors both decreasing and increasing response latencies were equally present. However, this trend was only significant in 2 out of 8 recorded neurons for the CS+. When estimating response latencies from spike trains pooled across repeated trials, we noticed a fast response-to-stimulus behavior of mushroom body extrinsic neurons with latencies smaller than 200ms. This was equally true for neurons that had developed a response to the CS+ only after conditioning. In future steps we will further investigate odor-specificity of response latencies in the earlier processing stages of the honeybee olfactory system using the same recording technique.
References
1. Wesson DW, Carey RM, Verhagen JV, Wachowiak M (2008) Rapid encoding and perception of novel odors in the
rat. PLoS Biol 6(4): e82.
2. Krofczik S, Menzel R, Nawrot MP (2008) Rapid odor processing in the honeybee antennal lobe network. Submitted.
3. Chase SM, Young ED, (2007) First-spike latency information in single neurons increases when referenced to population onset. PNAS vol.104 no.12 5175–5180.
Conference:
Bernstein Symposium 2008, Munich, Germany, 8 Oct - 10 Oct, 2008.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Topic:
All Abstracts
Citation:
Pamir
E,
Schmuker
M,
Strube-Bloss
M,
Menzel
R and
Nawrot
MP
(2008). Detection of odor-specific response latencies in the honeybee olfactory system.
Front. Comput. Neurosci.
Conference Abstract:
Bernstein Symposium 2008.
doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.10.2008.01.103
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Received:
17 Nov 2008;
Published Online:
17 Nov 2008.
*
Correspondence:
Evren Pamir, Freie Universität Berlin, 82152 Planegg-Martinsried, Germany, evren_pamir@web.de