Though, the behavioral habituation in different species is characterized across various sensory modalities, the comprehensive description of how neuronal/synaptic plasticity mechanisms account for an organism to perceive the non-familiar sensory stimulus as a familiar percept remains relatively poorly understood.

In this context, our study made a systemic contribution in filling the gap between the behavioral habituation and the underlying neuronal, as well as the molecular mechanisms. Using behavioral studies combined with sophisticated genetic tools, biochemical and live-imaging techniques we present strong evidences that olfactory habituation in flies arises from a selective potentiation of inhibitory synapses in the antennal lobe (iLN-PN), which attenuates the olfactory responses.

While we show that both short-term (STH) and long-term olfactory habituation (LTH) appears to arise from iLN-PN potentiation, the timescale of synaptic plasticity is different. Addressing the molecular and the synaptic mechanisms that drive STH and LTH behavior in flies, we have made an interesting observation that STH is not a necessary step towards the formation of LTH and thus, by providing in vivo evidences we suggest an independent processing of short- and long-term olfactory memories in the adult antennal lobe.

Further, the observed recovery of behavioral habituation is not a passive decay process.  Instead, similar to acquisition, consolidation and retrieval of olfactory memories, forgetting also appears to be an active mechanism regulated by a subset of olfactory neurons and specific signaling pathway, which we are currently elucidating.