**Spatiotemporal Neural Activities Involved in the Olfactory Processing of the Land Slug using Fluorescent-Imaging Technique**

Minoru Saito

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.69459

#### **Abstract**

The brain or central nervous system forms a network composed of so many neurons and their function is based on complex interactions among electric neural activities, intracellular calcium signals, intercellular communications by neurotransmitter, and so on. For multipoint measurement of neural activities, fluorescent-imaging technique using voltagesensitive dyes or calcium-sensitive dyes can be a powerful technique. This technique has been applied to measure spatiotemporal neural activities involved in the olfactory processing of the land slug *Limax*. In *Lima*x, the procerebral (PC) lobe, which is the olfactory center located in the lateral part of each cerebral ganglion, spontaneously produces a periodic oscillation of local field potential (LFP) of about 1 Hz, and the phase of the LFP oscillation is advanced at the distal region, resulting in periodic propagating waves of neural activity from the distal to proximal regions. The previous studies showed that odor stimuli change the LFP frequency and the wave propagation speed. In this article, we review the previous studies, as well as our recent studies, on the spatiotemporal neural activities of the land slug *Limax* using fluorescent-imaging technique.

**Keywords:** land slug, olfactory processing, spatiotemporal neural activity, fluorescentimaging technique, voltage-sensitive dye, calcium-sensitive dye
