Tuyển tập các báo cáo nghiên cứu về sinh học được đăng trên tạp chí sinh học Journal of Biology đề tài: Contrast enhancement of stimulus intermittency in a primary olfactory network and its behavioral significance. | Journal of Biology BioMed Central Research article Open Access Contrast enhancement of stimulus intermittency in a primary olfactory network and its behavioral significance Hong Lei Jeffrey A Riffell Stephanie L Gage and John G Hildebrand Address ARL-Division of Neurobiology University of Arizona Tucson AZ 85721-0077 USA. Correspondence Hong Lei. Email hlei@ Published 20 February 2009 Received 2 December 2008 Journal of Biology 2009 8 21 doi jbiol120 Rev sed u J gy v jy Accepted 30 January2009 The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at http content 8 2 21 2009 Lei et al. licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http licenses by which permits unrestricted use distribution and reproduction in any medium provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Background An animal navigating to an unseen odor source must accurately resolve the spatiotemporal distribution of that stimulus in order to express appropriate upwind flight behavior. Intermittency of natural odor plumes caused by air turbulence is critically important for many insects including the hawkmoth Manduca sexta for odor-modulated search behavior to an odor source. When a moth s antennae receive intermittent odor stimulation the projection neurons PNs in the primary olfactory centers the antennal lobes which are analogous to the olfactory bulbs of vertebrates generate discrete bursts of action potentials separated by periods of inhibition suggesting that the PNs may use the binary burst non-burst neural patterns to resolve and enhance the intermittency of the stimulus encountered in the odor plume. Results We tested this hypothesis first by establishing that bicuculline methiodide reliably and reversibly disrupted the ability of PNs to produce bursting response patterns. Behavioral studies in
