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Visual-olfactory integration in the human disease vector mosquito, Aedes aegypti

Clément Vinauger, Floris Van Breugel, Lauren T. Locke, Kennedy K.S. Tobin, Michael H. Dickinson, Adrienne Fairhall, Omar S. Akbari, Jeffrey A. Riffell
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/512996
Clément Vinauger
2Department of Biochemistry, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA 24061
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Floris Van Breugel
3Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Nevada-Reno, Reno, NV 89557
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Lauren T. Locke
4Department of Biology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
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Kennedy K.S. Tobin
4Department of Biology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
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Michael H. Dickinson
5Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA
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Adrienne Fairhall
6Department of Physiology and Biophysics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
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Omar S. Akbari
7Division of Biological Sciences, University of California, San Diego, San Diego, CA 92093, USA
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Jeffrey A. Riffell
4Department of Biology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
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  • For correspondence: jriffell@uw.edu
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Summary

Mosquitoes rely on the integration of multiple sensory cues, including olfactory, visual, and thermal stimuli, to detect, identify and locate their hosts [1–4]. Although we increasingly know more about the role of chemosensory behaviours in mediating mosquito-host interactions [1], the role of visual cues remains comparatively less studied [3], and how the combination of olfactory and visual information is integrated in the mosquito brain remains unknown. In the present study, we used a tethered-flight LED arena, which allowed for quantitative control over the stimuli, to show that CO2 exposure affects target-tracking responses, but not responses to large-field visual stimuli. In addition, we show that CO2 modulates behavioural responses to visual objects in a time-dependent manner. To gain insight into the neural basis of this olfactory and visual coupling, we conducted two-photon microscopy experiments in a new GCaMP6s-expressing mosquito line. Imaging revealed that the majority of ROIs in the lobula region of the optic lobe exhibited strong responses to small-field stimuli, but showed little response to a large-field stimulus. Approximately 20% of the neurons we imaged were modulated when an attractive odour preceded the visual stimulus; these same neurons also elicited a small response when the odour was presented alone. By contrast, imaging in the antennal lobe revealed no modulation when visual stimuli were presented before or after the olfactory stimulus. Together, our results are the first to reveal the dynamics of olfactory modulation in visually evoked behaviours of mosquitoes, and suggest that coupling between these sensory systems is asymmetrical and time-dependent.

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The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.
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Posted January 07, 2019.
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Visual-olfactory integration in the human disease vector mosquito, Aedes aegypti
Clément Vinauger, Floris Van Breugel, Lauren T. Locke, Kennedy K.S. Tobin, Michael H. Dickinson, Adrienne Fairhall, Omar S. Akbari, Jeffrey A. Riffell
bioRxiv 512996; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/512996
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Visual-olfactory integration in the human disease vector mosquito, Aedes aegypti
Clément Vinauger, Floris Van Breugel, Lauren T. Locke, Kennedy K.S. Tobin, Michael H. Dickinson, Adrienne Fairhall, Omar S. Akbari, Jeffrey A. Riffell
bioRxiv 512996; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/512996

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