Sparse and stereotyped encoding implicates a core glomerulus for ant alarm behavior.
Cell
; 186(14): 3079-3094.e17, 2023 07 06.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-37321218
ABSTRACT
Ants communicate via large arrays of pheromones and possess expanded, highly complex olfactory systems, with antennal lobes in the brain comprising up to â¼500 glomeruli. This expansion implies that odors could activate hundreds of glomeruli, which would pose challenges for higher-order processing. To study this problem, we generated transgenic ants expressing the genetically encoded calcium indicator GCaMP in olfactory sensory neurons. Using two-photon imaging, we mapped complete glomerular responses to four ant alarm pheromones. Alarm pheromones robustly activated ≤6 glomeruli, and activity maps for the three pheromones inducing panic alarm in our study species converged on a single glomerulus. These results demonstrate that, rather than using broadly tuned combinatorial encoding, ants employ precise, narrowly tuned, and stereotyped representations of alarm pheromones. The identification of a central sensory hub glomerulus for alarm behavior suggests that a simple neural architecture is sufficient to translate pheromone perception into behavioral outputs.
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Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Formigas
Limite:
Animals
Idioma:
En
Ano de publicação:
2023
Tipo de documento:
Article