Olfactory processing and learning of complex scents in insects

对于所有动物来说，处理生物上重要气味的能力--通常是数十到数百种挥发性化学物质的混合物--对基本行为有根本的影响。此外，嗅觉功能缺陷是许多影响学习和记忆的神经退行性疾病早期发病的指标。尽管气味混合物对行为的重要性已经被接受，但在确定大脑中嗅觉处理的机制(例如，在昆虫的触角叶[AL]中)，以及大脑下游区域如何在学习过程中进一步处理气味信息方面，仍存在着重要的差距。这个项目将使用一种跨学科的方法，将新的化学分析和电生理技术与行为动物(Manduca Sexta Moths)的同时电生理记录结合起来，以了解气味是如何处理的，并确定这些信息在学习过程中是如何解码的。嗅觉线索在调节昆虫行为方面起着重要作用。该项目将：(1)表征由蛾子授粉的不同花卉物种的气味成分，并确定气味中驱动肾小球反应和诱导行为的关键气味成分；(2)确定编码机制(S)，通过该编码机制，来自这些不同花卉物种的气味激活相同的肾小球回路(S)以诱导行为；以及(3)在AL和蘑菇体(学习和记忆的场所)中使用同时的多通道记录，同时蛾学习气味和奖励之间的关联，以确定混合信息是如何解码的，以及胃口学习如何调节气味表示。因此，该项目将促进对蛾等害虫行为的嗅觉控制的理解，并有助于最终控制蚊子等人类疾病的昆虫媒介。此外，该项目还将向学生介绍跨学科研究，以及向公众广泛传播动物行为的重要性。公众将通过公民科学项目参与到该项目中来。最后，该项目包括对本科生、研究生和博士后助理的培训，并帮助他们为独立的科学生涯做好准备。

For all animals, the ability to process biologically important odors - often mixtures of tens to hundreds of volatile chemicals - has a fundamental consequence for essential behaviors. Additionally, deficits in olfactory function are indicators of early onset of many neurodegenerative diseases that affect learning and memory. Despite the acceptance of the importance of odor mixtures for behavior, there are important gaps in identifying the mechanisms of olfactory processing in the brain (e.g., in the antennal lobe [AL] of insects), and how downstream areas of the brain further process that odor information during learning. This project will use an interdisciplinary approach that combines novel chemical analytical and electrophysiological techniques with simultaneous electrophysiological recordings from behaving animals (Manduca sexta moths) to understand how odors are processed and identify how this information is decoded during learning. Olfactory cues play fundamental roles in mediating insect behavior. This project will: (1) characterize the scent composition of diverse flower species pollinated by moths and identify key odorants in the scents that drive glomerular responses and elicit behavior; (2) determine the coding mechanism(s) by which the scents from these diverse flower species, which can differ in their profiles, activate the same glomerular circuit(s) to elicit behavior; and (3) use simultaneous multi-channel recording in the AL and mushroom body (the site of learning and memory) while the moth learns association between an odor and a reward to identify how mixture information is decoded and how appetitive learning modulates odor representation. The project will thus advance understanding of olfactory control of behavior of pests like moths and can contribute to the eventual control of insect vectors of human disease, like mosquitoes. Furthermore, the project will also introduce students to interdisciplinary research, as well as broadly communicate the importance of animal behavior to the public. Members of the public will be involved in the project through a citizen science project. Finally, the project includes the training of undergraduates, graduate students and postdoctoral associates and helps prepare them for independent scientific careers.