Insect olfaction: a map of smell in the brain.
Humans use three classes of photoreceptor to span the visible spectrum, but smell relies on hundreds of distinct classes of olfactory receptor neuron. Even the simple fruitfly has around 50 classes of olfactory receptor neuron. Two new studies map the projections of the great majority of these neurons into stereotyped positions in the fly brain, giving us an almost complete atlas of olfactory information transfer.
Jefferis
Gregory S X E
GS
Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EJ, UK. gsxej2@cam.ac.uk
D000818:Animals; D001931:Brain Mapping; D004330:Drosophila / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000502:physiology; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D018034:Olfactory Receptor Neurons / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000378:metabolism / Q000502:physiology; D012903:Smell / Q000502:physiology*