Neurochemical Organization of the Drosophila Brain Visualized by Endogenously Tagged Neurotransmitter Receptors.

Neurotransmitters often have multiple receptors that induce distinct responses in receiving cells. Expression and localization of neurotransmitter receptors in individual neurons are therefore critical for understanding the operation of neural circuits. Here we describe a comprehensive library of reporter strains in which a convertible T2A-GAL4 cassette is inserted into endogenous neurotransmitter receptor genes of Drosophila.

Adaptations during Maturation in an Identified Honeybee Interneuron Responsive to Waggle Dance Vibration Signals.

Honeybees are social insects, and individual bees take on different social roles as they mature, performing a multitude of tasks that involve multi-modal sensory integration. Several activities vital for foraging, like flight and waggle dance communication, involve sensing air vibrations through their antennae. We investigated changes in the identified vibration-sensitive interneuron DL-Int-1 in the honeybee during maturation by comparing properties of neurons from newly emerged adult and forager honeybees.

A Segmentation Scheme for Complex Neuronal Arbors and Application to Vibration Sensitive Neurons in the Honeybee Brain.

The morphology of a neuron is strongly related to its physiological properties, application of logical product and thus to information processing functions. Optical microscope images are widely used for extracting the structure of neurons. Although several approaches have been proposed to trace and extract complex neuronal structures from microscopy images, available methods remain prone to errors.

Inhibitory Pathways for Processing the Temporal Structure of Sensory Signals in the Insect Brain.

Insects have acquired excellent sensory information processing abilities in the process of evolution. In addition, insects have developed communication schemes based on the temporal patterns of specific sensory signals. For instance, male moths approach a female by detecting the spatiotemporal pattern of a pheromone plume released by the female.

Spatial registration of neuron morphologies based on maximization of volume overlap.

Background: Morphological features are widely used in the study of neuronal function and pathology. Invertebrate neurons are often structurally stereotypical, showing little variance in gross spatial features but larger variance in their fine features. Such variability can be quantified using detailed spatial analysis, which however requires the morphologies to be registered to a common frame of reference.

Interneurons in the Honeybee Primary Auditory Center Responding to Waggle Dance-Like Vibration Pulses.

Female honeybees use the "waggle dance" to communicate the location of nectar sources to their hive mates. Distance information is encoded in the duration of the waggle phase (von Frisch, 1967). During the waggle phase, the dancer produces trains of vibration pulses, which are detected by the follower bees via Johnston's organ located on the antennae.

NeuronDepot: keeping your colleagues in sync by combining modern cloud storage services, the local file system, and simple web applications.

Neuroscience today deals with a "data deluge" derived from the availability of high-throughput sensors of brain structure and brain activity, and increased computational resources for detailed simulations with complex output. We report here (1) a novel approach to data sharing between collaborating scientists that brings together file system tools and cloud technologies, (2) a service implementing this approach, called NeuronDepot, and (3) an example application of the service to a complex use case in the neurosciences. The main drivers for our approach are to facilitate collaborations with a transparent, automated data flow that shields scientists from having to learn new tools or data structuring paradigms.