The Sense of Scents: Olfactory Behaviors in the Zebrafish

The olfactory sensory system is perhaps the most intriguing of the sensory systems making up the peripheral nervous system. Understanding how olfactory sensory stimuli result in behaviors relevant to the animal is made complicated by the fact that olfactory stimuli are more difficult to quantify than light and sound stimuli. Furthermore, in all vertebrates the olfactory sensory neurons regenerate throughout life, presenting a fascinating problem of how both the functional repertoire of olfactory sensory neurons and fidelity of connections to the central nervous system are maintained. Olfactory behaviors are crucial for feeding and reproduction and the olfactory information essential to these behaviors appears to be processed separately in distinct regions of the central nervous system. Zebrafish represent an excellent model system in which the strength of genetics and development can be combined with neuroethological techniques to unravel the mechanisms underlying olfactory behaviors in vertebrate animals.