Patch-clamping arthropod olfactory receptor neurons to study mechanisms of olfactory transduction

The olfactory organ of arthropods such as lobsters and insects consists of an array of hair-like sensilla located on the antenna. Each sensillum contains from two to several hundred primary olfactory receptor neurons. The receptor neurons can be patch-clamped in three different types of preparations: intact cells in situ, cultured cells and outer dendrites. These preparations permit using a wide range of experimental strategies to study mechanisms of olfactory transduction. The ability to integrate data from three complementary preparations is a particular advantage of using arthropod models to understand how odor information is encoded by the primary receptor cell in olfaction.