title: Neural correlates of side-specific odour memory in mushroom body output neurons.
abstract: Humans and other mammals as well as honeybees learn a unilateral association between an olfactory stimulus presented to one side and a reward. In all of them, the learned association can be behaviourally retrieved via contralateral stimulation, suggesting inter-hemispheric communication. However, the underlying neuronal circuits are largely unknown and neural correlates of across-brain-side plasticity have yet not been demonstrated. We report neural plasticity that reflects lateral integration after side-specific odour reward conditioning. Mushroom body output neurons that did not respond initially to contralateral olfactory stimulation developed a unique and stable representation of the rewarded compound stimulus (side and odour) predicting its value during memory retention. The encoding of the reward-associated compound stimulus is delayed by about 40 ms compared with unrewarded neural activity, indicating an increased computation time for the read-out after lateral integration.
authors.affiliation: Department of Behavioral Physiology and Sociobiology, Theodor-Boveri-Institute of Bioscience, Biocenter University of Würzburg, Am Hubland, 97074 Würzburg, Germany martin.strube-bloss@uni-wuerzburg.de.
authors.forename: Martin F
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-8264-7534
authors.initials: MF
authors.lastname: Strube-Bloss
authors.affiliation: Martin Paul Nawrot, Computational Systems Neuroscience, Institute for Zoology, Department of Biology, University of Cologne, Biocenter University of Cologne, Zülpicher Straße 47b, 50674 Cologne, Germany.
authors.forename: Martin P
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Nawrot
authors.affiliation: Randolf Menzel, Institut für Biologie-Neurobiologie, Freie Universität Berlin, Königin-Luise-Str. 28/30, 14195 Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Randolf
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Menzel
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001516:Bees / Q000502:physiology*; D007858:Learning; D008568:Memory; D024521:Mushroom Bodies / Q000502:physiology*; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D009812:Odorants; D055696:Olfactory Perception
keywords: insects; lateral integration; mushroom body; neurophysiology; olfaction; plasticity