title: Central processing in the mushroom bodies.
abstract: The mushroom bodies in the insect brain serve as a central information processing area. Here, focusing mainly on olfaction, we discuss functionally related roles the mushroom bodies play in signal gain control, response sparsening, the separation of similar signals (decorrelation), and learning and memory. In sum, the mushroom bodies assemble and format a context-appropriate representation of the insect's world.
authors.affiliation: NIH-NICHD, Building 35, 35 Lincoln Drive, Rm 3E-623, msc 3715, Bethesda, MD 20892 USA, stopferm@mail.nih.gov.
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Stopfer
keywords: Drosophila; insect; locust; moth; olfaction; oscillation; sensory; synchrony