Coding of Innate Olfactory Preferences in the Mosquito Brain

PI: Prof. Nitin Gupta

Mosquitoes detect humans using a variety of cues, including the exhaled carbon dioxide and skin odors. Presently, the understanding about how the information relayed by the sensory neurons is processed in the mosquito brain and how it results in specific behavioral preferences is lacking. In this project, an electrophysiology lab will be established and technique of in-vivo intracellular recordings for mosquitoes will be optimized. By measuring the responses of projection neurons to attractive, repulsive and neutral odorants and examining their morphologies, it will be tested whether different attractive and repulsive odors are encoded by dedicated neural pathways.