Our symposium proposal entitled ‘Odors and metabolism - neuromodulation in sensory processing' will highlight some of the most recent advances in state-dependent modulation of information processing in the olfactory system. Most speciesrely heavily on olfaction to find and evaluate food, mating partners and oviposition sites or to avoid dangers. The animal’s current metabolic state, however, strongly modulatesits perception of odor according to behavioral and physiological needs. Conversely, odors influence appetite, emotions, and trigger general arousal. While we start to understand primary feed-forward processing in olfaction, the role of the many recurrent connections that are found in the olfactory nervous system across animal species remains elusive. Our symposium aims to shed light on these complex processes by combining speakers investigating the mechanisms underpinning state-dependent olfactory processing in different model systems and species.Veronica Egger will talk about neuromodulation through the hormone vasopressin in microcircuits in the rodent olfactory bulb. Celine Riera will focus her talk on the discovery of neural circuits regulating metabolic balance in the context of obesity, diabetes and the aging process - for instance, she previously showed in the mouse that the smell of food odor powerfully suppresses appetite. Katrin Vogt uses the powerful combination of Drosophila genetics and connectomics in the fly larva to demonstrate how hunger states switch perceptual valence of odors. Geraldine Wright will focus in her talk on how nutrition and physiology of honeybees and bumblebees influence chemical sensation and their ability to learn,ultimately influencing their choice of food, survival and ecology.Moreover, two students,Francisco Jesus Rodriguez Jimenez and Antoine Hoffmann, will speak about their latest results on neuromodulation and behavioral adaptation in Drosophila and the American cockroach, respectively. Taken together, we have chosenoutstanding researchersat different career stages working on different models on the same problem. How does metabolism modulate olfactory perception and behavior?

Start Symposium