In the Drosophila olfactory system around 1300 olfactory receptor neurons transmit sensory information to the antennal lobe where neurons of the same class converge on distinct glomeruli. Projection neuron dendrites innervate these glomeruli in a glomerular specific manner and send their axonal projections to the higher brain centres of the mushroom body and the lateral horn. In the mushroom body the projection neurons converge on the Kenyon cells with roughly a 10:1 ratio. In the lateral horn the projections neurons converge on a yet unknown number of cells. The lateral horn is thought to be anatomically subdivided into distinct region, one for processing of pheromone information and another for processing of food odour information. My aim is to use the chemical labelling techniques recently developed in our lab to map the neurons of the lateral horn, classifying them based on neuroblast lineage and assigning neurotransmitter profiles.
