Cracking the encoding of human scent in the mosquito brain

Abstract

In a recent study, Zhao et al. decipher how the olfactory system encodes human versus animal odors in the mosquito Aedes aegypti. By combining genome engineering, invivo calcium imaging, advanced chemistry, and behavioral analysis, the authors provide compelling evidence that the discriminatory coding of host odors is surprisingly simple - and bridges labeled line with combinatorial coding.

Keywords: Aedes aegypti; coding; human odor; mosquito; olfaction.