Smell experience during critical period alters brain

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During the first few days of life chronic exposure to carbon dioxide (right) rather than air (left) alters the activity of projection neurons and interneurons in the fly brain -- research that is first to show that the olfactory system is plastic. Cr ...
During the first few days of life, chronic exposure to carbon dioxide (right) rather than air (left) alters the activity of projection neurons and interneurons in the fly brain -- research that is first to show that the olfactory system is plastic. Credit: Rockefeller University

Unlike the circuitry of the visual system, that of the olfactory system was thought to be hardwired: Once the neurons had formed, no amount of sensory input could change their arrangement. Now researchers at Rockefeller University and their collaborators have upturned this scientific dogma by showing that there is a sensitive period during which the external environment can alter a circuit in the fly brain that detects carbon dioxide, a gas that alerts flies to food and mates.


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