SUMMARY In Drosophila, rapid temperature changes are detected at the periphery by dedicated receptors forming a simple sensory map for hot and cold in the brain1. However, flies show a host of complex innate and learned responses to temperature, indicating that they are able to extract a range of information from this simple input. Here, we define the anatomical and physiological repertoire for temperature representation in the Drosophila brain. First, we use a photolabeling strategy2 to trace the connections that relay peripheral thermosensory information to higher brain centers, and show that they largely converge onto three target regions: the Mushroom Body, Lateral Horn (well-known centers for sensory processing) and the Posterior Lateral Protocerebrum, a region we now define as a major site of thermosensory representation. Then, using in vivo calcium imaging3, we describe the thermosensory projection neurons selectively activated by hot or cold stimuli. Fast-adapting neurons display transient “ON” and “OFF” responses and track rapid temperature shifts remarkably well, while slow-adapting cell responses better reflect the magnitude of simple thermal changes. Unexpectedly, we also find a population of ‘broadly-tuned’ cells that respond to both heating and cooling, and show that they are required for normal behavioral avoidance of both hot and cold in a simple 2-choice temperature preference assay. Taken together, our results uncover a coordinated ensemble of neural responses to temperature in the fly brain, demonstrate that a broadly tuned thermal-line contributes to rapid avoidance behavior, and illustrate how stimulus quality, temporal structure, and intensity can be extracted from a simple glomerular map at a single synaptic station.

Summary The Drosophila antenna contains receptor neurons for mechanical, olfactory, thermal and humidity stimuli. Neurons expressing the ionotropic receptor IR40a have been implicated in the selection of an appropriate humidity range [1, 2], but while previous work indicates that insect hygroreceptors may be made up by a ‘triad’ of neurons (with a dry- a cold- and a humid-air responding cell [3]), IR40a expression included only cold- and dry-air cells. Here, we report the identification of the humid-responding neuron that completes the hygrosensory triad in the Drosophila antenna. This cell type expresses the Ir68a gene, and Ir68a mutation perturbs humidity preference. Next, we follow the projections of Ir68a neurons to the brain, and show that they form a distinct glomerulus in the posterior antennal lobe (PAL). In the PAL, a simple sensory map represents related features of the external environment with adjacent ‘hot’, ‘cold’, ‘dry’, and ‘humid’ glomeruli -an organization that allows for both unique and combinatorial sampling by central relay neurons. Indeed, flies avoided dry heat more robustly than humid heat, and this modulation was abolished by silencing dry-air receptors. Consistently, at least one projection neuron type received direct synaptic input from both temperature and dry air glomeruli. Our results further our understanding of humidity sensing in the Drosophila antenna, uncover a neuronal substrate for early sensory integration of temperature and humidity in the brain, and illustrate the logic of how ethologically relevant combinations of sensory cues can be processed together to produce adaptive behavioral responses

Two signalling pathways work together to reshape olfactory responses so that hungry flies are attracted to food sources they would otherwise ignore.