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    Home > Food News > Food Articles > How could a mosquito "target" you?

    How could a mosquito "target" you?

    • Last Update: 2021-02-26
    • Source: Internet
    • Author: User
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    U.S. team found that mosquitoes find, track and find "food" by "sniffing and seeing." In this process, carbon dioxide is an important signal for mosquitoes to find their targets. Studies have solved the mystery of how mosquitoes forage at the neuroscience level.
    's study, published in the new issue of the American Journal of Current Biology, shows that when a mosquito's olfactory system detects signals such as carbon dioxide, it triggers changes inside the brain that trigger behavioral responses: activating the visual system, "scanning" objects of a specific shape around them and flying toward them.
    researchers used tungsten wire to tie about 250 female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes to a ring about 18 cm in diameter, with optical sensors under the mosquitoes to observe how often the mosquito's wings flap, and a 360-degree LCD screen around them to play different images that stimulate mosquito vision.
    researchers sprayed air with a 5% carbon dioxide content (4.5% of the air exhaled by a person) from an air incoming air in one second. The results showed that the frequency of mosquito wing flapping accelerated. The researchers found that playing images of fast-moving stars on the display had little effect on mosquito behavior, but playing horizontally moving strips, which fanned their wings more frequently and tried to move in the direction of the long strips.
    researchers repeated the experiment using specific genetically modified mosquitoes. When these genetically modified mosquitoes have large amounts of calcium ions in their cells, they glow green. They removed the mosquitoes' skulls and used a microscope to observe neuron activity in various parts of their brains in real time.The
    team focused on 59 visually relevant brain regions of mosquitoes, and found that two-thirds of the visually-related brain regions were lit when they saw the moving strips, while 23 percent of the brain regions were more active than before, suggesting that carbon dioxide triggered a greater response.(
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