Our broad goal is to understand how smell turns into behaviour in the fruit fly brain. We currently use a combination of genetic labelling and manipulation, targeted in vivo whole cell patch clamp recording and high-resolution computational neuroanatomy to study olfactory circuits.
We are particularly interested in how odour information is processed by the higher olfactory centres that mediate innate and learned behaviour.
One special interest is understanding how third order olfactory neurons of one of these higher centres, the lateral horn, integrate information from specific olfactory channels.
This process of selective integration is fundamental to perception and likely to underlie innate behavioural responses to general odours and sex pheromones.
Selected Papers
- Schlegel, P, Yin, Y, Bates, AS et al (2024)
Whole-brain annotation and multi-connectome cell typing of Drosophila
Nature 634: 139–152 - Eckstein N, Bates AS, Champion A, Du M, Yin Y, Schlegel P, Lu AK, Rymer T, Finley-May S, Paterson T, Parekh R, Dorkenwald S, Matsliah A, Yu SC, McKellar C, Sterling A, Eichler K, Costa M, Seung S, Murthy M, Hartenstein V, Jefferis GSXE, Funke J (2024)
Neurotransmitter classification from electron microscopy images at synaptic sites in Drosophila melanogaster
Cell Volume 187 10: 2574-2594 - Taisz I, Donà E, Münch D, Bailey SN, Morris BJ, Meechan KI, Stevens KM, Varela-Martínez I, Gkantia M, Schlegel P, Ribeiro C, Jefferis GSXE, Galili DS. (2023)
Generating parallel representations of position and identity in the olfactory system
Cell 186(12): 2556-2573 - Bates AS, Manton JD, Jagannathan SR, Costa M, Schlegel P, Rohlfing T, Jefferis GS. (2020)
The natverse, a versatile toolbox for combining and analysing neuroanatomical data
Elife 14: 9:e53350 - Dolan MJ, Belliart-Guérin G, Bates AS, Frechter S, Lampin-Saint-Amaux A, Aso Y, Roberts RJV, Schlegel P, Wong A, Hammad A, Bock D, Rubin GM, Preat T, Plaçais PY, Jefferis GSXE. (2018)
Communication from Learned to Innate Olfactory Processing Centers Is Required for Memory Retrieval in Drosophila
Neuron 100(3): 651-668
Group Members
- Isabella Beckett
- Sebastian Cachero
- Shahar Frechter
- Florian Kampf
- Myrto Mitletton
- Markus Pleijzier
- Gerald Rubin
- Philipp Schlegel
- Valeria Silva-Moeller
- Tomke Stuerner
- Catherine Whittle