Drosophila Olfaction – From Odor Molecules to Brain Activity

We are investigating how odors are coded and processed in the Drosophila brain to lead to a specific odor perception. The basic layout of the first olfactory processing centers, the vertebrate olfactory bulb and the insect antennal lobe, is remarkably similar. Odors are encoded by activated glomeruli in a combinatorial manner. Drosophila melanogaster provides an attractive model organism for studying olfaction, as it allows genetic, molecular and physiological analyses. The talk will summarize our recent insights into coding strategies of ecologically
relevant odors yielded by morphological and functional analysis of the neuronal populations present in the antennal lobe and aim to find the link to odor-guided behavior.