111 Investigating the Functional Consequences of Bias Neural Connectivity in Drosophila melanogaster

Faculty Mentor: Sophie Caron (School of Biological Sciences, University of Utah)

The mushroom body of the Drosophila melanogaster is a structure in the brain that is necessary for learning, but much of how it functions remains unknown. In this model organism, D. melanogaster’s mushroom body neurons, known as Kenyon cells, and input projection neurons have connections that are random and biased—in which some projections neurons connect with Kenyon cells more than others—allowing the fly to potentially prioritize the learning of particular odors. For my thesis, I am investigating the functional consequences of these biases in order to understand the biological role they play for the fly. I aim to do this using a theoretical and experimental approach. Using a computational model of the D. melanogaster olfactory system, I am exploring how biased connectivity to the mushroom body influences its ability to form associations with various odors and distinguish between similar odors. Experimentally, I am characterizing the morphological features of olfactory circuits with low to high connectivity rates to the mushroom body, allowing us to see if there are unique features in these circuits that are beyond the different connectivity rates. Through a combination of immunohistochemistry and confocal microscopy, I am generating high quality images of these different olfactory circuits and their morphological qualities, such as the number and volume of boutons they project to the mushroom body. A future direction if time permits would be for me to explore possible ways to manipulate the connectivity rates of different olfactory circuits which, if achieved, could allow for the exploration of how such manipulation could affect learning and odor coding capacity.