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#olfaction

1 post1 participant0 posts today
Public
Albert Cardona

PhD project with Marcus Stensmyr @MarcusStensmyr :

"will address fundamental questions about how the fly's sense of smell operates. More specifically, the prospective PhD student will map the evolution of chemoreceptors in drosophilids over deep time and investigate how these receptors are used to extract sensory information from the environment. The project will utilize museomics, comparative genomics, electrophysiology, and fieldwork to trace the functional evolution of chemoreceptor genes within Drosophilidae."

Knowing Marcus a bit, it is also going to be a lot of fun. And in a great city too – Lund, Sweden.

Apply by May 5th.

#Drosophila #olfaction #PhDPosition #PhDJobs
lu.varbi.com/en/what:job/jobID

lu.varbi.comDoctoral student in BiologySubject description Biology is the broad subject about all living things. It encompasses everything from processes at the molecular and cellular level to global processes at ecosystem level. The subje
Public
Albert Cardona

"Laterality and interhemispheric integration in the larval Drosophila olfactory system", by Zimmerman, @debivort and Samuel 2025 biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/20

bioRxiv · Laterality and interhemispheric integration in the larval Drosophila olfactory systemAll animals with bilateral symmetry must integrate the sensory input from the left and right sides of their bodies to make coherent perceptual decisions. In Drosophila larvae, connectomic evidence suggests that olfactory signals from the two sides of the head are initially processed independently (as in the mammalian olfactory system) before being combined in the central brain. By pairing volumetric calcium imaging in intact larvae with microfluidic odor delivery and targeted laser ablation at the sensory periphery, we have mapped the propagation of olfactory signals between the two brain hemispheres, across successive layers of the larval olfactory system. This approach implicates the mushroom body (MB) as a key substrate for interhemispheric integration of odor representations. Whereas the two larval MBs appear to process odors largely independently at the level of their intrinsic neurons (Kenyon cells), the modulatory neurons of the MB show strongly symmetrized responses to asymmetric olfactory stimuli. Nevertheless, odor responses in some MB output neurons (MBONs), up to 5 synapses downstream from the sensory periphery, preserve information about stimulus laterality. Moreover, we show that asymmetric activation of these MBONs can modulate the animal's turning behavior in a side-biased manner. These findings suggest that the deeply lateralized architecture of the larval olfactory system balances the need for interhemispheric integration with the advantages of parallel sensory processing. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest.
#neuroscience#Drosophila#DrosophilaLarva
Public
Albert Cardona

Temperature matters:

"brain connectivity scales continuously across temperatures"

With impacts on brain function:

"developmental temperature does not alter odor encoding in first- and second-order neurons, but it shifts the specificity of connections onto third-order neurons that mediate innate behaviors."

From: "Impact of developmental temperature on neural growth, connectivity, and function", by Züfle et al. 2025 (Carlotta Martelli's lab)
science.org/doi/full/10.1126/s

#neuroscience#olfaction#Drosophila
Public
Albert Cardona

"Moving beyond Drosophila – Jumping ants as a model species in research on gene regulation." blog.myrmecologicalnews.org/20

"In this interview, Hua Yan, Bogdan Sieriebriennikov and Kayli Sieber highlight the key points of their paper published in Science, “Orco-dependent survival of odorant receptor neurons in ants“"

The paper:
"Orco-dependent survival of odorant receptor neurons in ants"
Sieriebriennikov et al. 2024
science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv

"Here, we demonstrate massive apoptosis of odorant receptor neurons (ORNs) in the mid to late stages of pupal development, possibly due to ER stress in the absence of Orco. Further bulk and single-nucleus transcriptome analysis shows that, although most orco-expressing ORNs die in orco mutants, a small proportion of them survive: They express ionotropic receptor (Ir) genes that form IR complexes. In addition, we found that some Or genes are expressed in mechanosensory neurons and nonneuronal cells, possibly due to leaky regulation from nearby non-Or genes."

Myrmecological News Blog · Moving beyond Drosophila – Jumping ants as a model species in research on gene regulation.Olfaction is essential for complex social behavior in insects. To discriminate complex social cues, ants evolved an expanded number of odorant receptors (Or) genes strategically located in the antennae. Mutations in the obligate odorant co-receptor
#ants#genetics#neuroscience
Public
Good News Community

Exciting new research shows that our sense of smell is much faster and more sensitive than once believed! Scientists found that humans can detect tiny changes in odors within just milliseconds, challenging the idea that our noses are less precise than other senses. This discovery could revolutionize how we understand scent and its impact on our daily lives!

@goodnews

#GoodNews #ScienceUpdate #SenseOfSmell #Olfaction #HumanSenses #ScientificDiscovery
thedebrief.org/our-sense-of-sm

The Debrief · Our Sense of Smell is More Sensitive Than Previously Thought, New Research Shows - The DebriefScience, Tech and Defense for the Rebelliously Curious.
Public
BellingenNSW

Monitoring Australia’s endangered species
while logging their habitats

Scent dogs are being replaced by cost-effective biomonitoring of threatened species. Technology will detection chemical signals of wildlife assemblages in the environment. " Little did we know that traces of wildlife presence float in the air and can be detected through traces of DNA."

Will the air sampling techniques operate with the pollution of heavy logging machinery to detect the scent of a koala or a glider? Will it cut through the thick smoke from (bush) fires that follow? Will traffic pollution allow allow the technology to pick up the airborne eDNA?
>>
Frère, C., et.al (2023). Koalas, friends, and foes -- the application of airborne edna for the biomonitoring of threatened species.
besjournals.onlinelibrary.wile
#Koalas #glider #platypus #wildlife #conservation #BioMonitoring #dogs #ScentDogs #UAVs #eDNA #technosphere #olfaction #MoreData #NSWLogging #IndustrialLogging

Replied in thread
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Albert Cardona

@tsizzle_

I've just re-read the paper again. What a nice case of one single neuromodulator yet multiple effects, via each PN of each glomerulus of the olfactory lobe expressing a different yet largely stereotyped amount of the receptor.

#Drosophila for the win, again.

nature.com/articles/s41467-023

NatureHeterogeneous receptor expression underlies non-uniform peptidergic modulation of olfaction in Drosophila - Nature CommunicationsNeuropeptides are ancient modulators of neural signaling, but remain poorly understood. Here, the authors examine the neural and molecular substrates that enable a single neuropeptide to differentially modulate olfactory input to the Drosophila AL.
#neuroscience#olfaction#neuromodulation
Public
kevinbolding

Hi Everyone.

At the beginning of the year I received notice I've got my first funding as a new PI. It's for an ambitious project to look at how the main olfactory system in mice enables individualized social interactions. I wanted to hire a postdoc before, but now I really really want to hire a postdoc. If you know anyone who is at the right stage and might think the picture attached to this post looks cool, please can you share? There's a lot more to it than what's in the diagrams here.

The job ad is in several places including here:
sparksociety.org/resource-blog

Diagrams illustrating 1. That animals need to tell individuals apart even if they are the same sex or strain. 2. That individual identity cues may be subtle and processes late in the odor processing cycle. 3. An approach for delivering mouse odors with experimental control and the ability to monitor neural activity in the olfactory system in the receiving mouse (i.e., miniscopes).
#neurojobs#neuroscience#imaging
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