A female hawkmoth (Manduca sexta) tries to drink from scented filter paper. SONJA BISCH-KNADEN
A female hawkmoth (Manduca sexta) locates sources of nectar and decides where to lay its eggs via olfactory cues. Researchers reported last week (February 27) in Cell Reports that a different area in the olfactory center of the moth’s brain is involved in processing egg-laying from feeding cues.
“By using diagnostic odors to stimulate each single moth in our test series, we established a functional atlas of the antennal lobe,” says first author Sonja Bisch-Knaden, a neuroethologist at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, in a press release. “We were able to address two-thirds of the visible olfactory glomeruli in each animal and then study the moths’ responses to a large set of odors.”
The researchers first analyzed the concentration of calcium ions in ...
