TY - JOUR
T1 - Evolution of olfactory circuits in insects
AU - Zhao, Zhilei
AU - McBride, Carolyn S.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Tom Auer, Marcus Stensmyr, Neil Vickers, and Lu Yang for discussion and helpful comments. C.S.M.’s laboratory is supported by the Pew Scholars Program, the Searle Scholars Program, the Klingenstein-Simons Fellowship program, the NIH (National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders R00DC012069, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases DP2AI144246), and the New York Stem Cell Foundation. C.S.M. is a New York Stem Cell Foundation—Robertson Investigator.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, The Author(s).
PY - 2020/5/1
Y1 - 2020/5/1
N2 - Recent years have seen an explosion of interest in the evolution of neural circuits. Comparison of animals from different families, orders, and phyla reveals fascinating variation in brain morphology, circuit structure, and neural cell types. However, it can be difficult to connect the complex changes that occur across long evolutionary distances to behavior. Luckily, these changes accumulate through processes that should also be observable in recent time, making more tractable comparisons of closely related species relevant and complementary. Here, we review several decades of research on the evolution of insect olfactory circuits across short evolutionary time scales. We describe two well-studied systems, Drosophila sechellia flies and Heliothis moths, in detailed case studies. We then move through key types of circuit evolution, cataloging examples from other insects and looking for general patterns. The literature is dominated by changes in sensory neuron number and tuning at the periphery—often enhancing neural response to odorants with new ecological or social relevance. However, changes in the way olfactory information is processed by central circuits is clearly important in a few cases, and we suspect the development of genetic tools in non-model species will reveal a broad role for central circuit evolution. Moving forward, such tools should also be used to rigorously test causal links between brain evolution and behavior.
AB - Recent years have seen an explosion of interest in the evolution of neural circuits. Comparison of animals from different families, orders, and phyla reveals fascinating variation in brain morphology, circuit structure, and neural cell types. However, it can be difficult to connect the complex changes that occur across long evolutionary distances to behavior. Luckily, these changes accumulate through processes that should also be observable in recent time, making more tractable comparisons of closely related species relevant and complementary. Here, we review several decades of research on the evolution of insect olfactory circuits across short evolutionary time scales. We describe two well-studied systems, Drosophila sechellia flies and Heliothis moths, in detailed case studies. We then move through key types of circuit evolution, cataloging examples from other insects and looking for general patterns. The literature is dominated by changes in sensory neuron number and tuning at the periphery—often enhancing neural response to odorants with new ecological or social relevance. However, changes in the way olfactory information is processed by central circuits is clearly important in a few cases, and we suspect the development of genetic tools in non-model species will reveal a broad role for central circuit evolution. Moving forward, such tools should also be used to rigorously test causal links between brain evolution and behavior.
KW - Drosophila sechellia
KW - Evolution
KW - Insects
KW - Neural circuits
KW - Olfaction
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U2 - 10.1007/s00359-020-01399-6
DO - 10.1007/s00359-020-01399-6
M3 - Review article
C2 - 31984441
AN - SCOPUS:85078348593
SN - 0340-7594
VL - 206
SP - 353
EP - 367
JO - Journal of Comparative Physiology A: Neuroethology, Sensory, Neural, and Behavioral Physiology
JF - Journal of Comparative Physiology A: Neuroethology, Sensory, Neural, and Behavioral Physiology
IS - 3
ER -