On September 23, 2010, Neuron published a research article from Zuoren Wang’s Laboratory entitled “Functional Connectivity and Selective Odor Responses of Excitatory Local Interneurons in Drosophila Antennal Lobe”. This work was mainly carried out by Ph.D. student Ju Huang, under the supervision of Dr. Zuoren Wang.

Excitatory local interneurons (eLNs) in the Drosophila antennal lobe are thought to play important roles in shaping odor responses. However, the physiological properties of eLNs and their connectivity in the antennal lobe remain unclear. Using paired recording of eLNs and PNs, Ju Huang et al. found widespread reciprocal excitatory connections between eLNs and PNs mediated by dendrodendritic cholinergic synapses and gap junctions. Reciprocal connections were also found among eLNs, but rarely between eLNs and inhibitory LNs (iLNs). Furthermore, in vivo odor stimulation experiments demonstrated that each eLN responded with distinct patterns to different odors, and furthermore, each odor elicited distinct responses in different eLNs, with specific temporal patterns of spiking. These findings contribute to our fundamental understanding of olfactory neural coding mechanism. A preview of this work, written by Prof. Gilles Laurent, a distinguished scientist in the olfactory coding field, was published in the same issue of Neuron.
 

This work was supported by the grants from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Ministry of Science and Technology and National Natural Science Foundation of China.