Kenyon cells

See it in a lesson

• Lesson 1

  How a fly remembers a smell

  Send a smell into a real fly brain and find where its memory is kept.

  Where the lesson uses it

  1. Tap Stimulate again and follow the colors. Yellow projection neurons (the smell messengers) carry the smell inward. Blue Kenyon cells (the smell sorters) catch it next.

     The blue cells turn each smell into its own pattern.

  2. Now silence the Kenyon cells (the smell sorters). We will send the smell for you. What disappears?

     The pink light almost vanishes. The smell still gets in, but the memory readers get nothing to read.

  3. Tap the Kenyon cells (the smell sorters) button again to switch them back on. We will send the same smell.

     The pink light comes back. The fly can read its smell memory again.

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Related terms

Antennae

The two feelers on a fly’s head. A fly smells with them, the way you smell with your nose.

Smell receptors

Nerve cells on the antennae that fire when a smell lands on them. Every smell starts here.

Antennal lobe

The first stop for smells inside the fly’s brain, where the smell receptors hand their signal to the projection neurons.

Projection neurons

Nerve cells that carry the smell signal from the antennal lobe deeper into the brain, to the mushroom body.

Mushroom body

A mushroom-shaped part of an insect’s brain where smells are sorted and smell memories are stored.

Output neurons

Nerve cells that read the pattern of the Kenyon cells and pass it on to the rest of the brain. Scientists call them MBONs, short for mushroom body output neurons.