Feature Integration Drives Probabilistic Behavior in the Drosophila Escape Response

Reyn, Catherine R. von; Nern, Aljoscha; Williamson, W. Ryan; Breads, Patrick; Wu, Ming‐Chi; Namiki, Shigehiro; Card, Gwyneth M

doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2017.05.036

Cited by 126 publications

(193 citation statements)

References 73 publications

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“…For instance, as a male approaches a stationary female during courtship, she would appear to be looming. LC4 and LC16 have previously been shown to respond to looming stimuli to generate escape responses [23,10,11]; here, we show that in the context of mating, males can also utilize these cell populations to drive distinct courtship behaviors. In contrast to previous studies that have focused on the role of female-generated movement in mediating male chase behaviors [6,7,8,9,12], our experiments indicate that visual cues play a much broader role in regulating spatial and temporal aspects of mating-related social interactions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 49%

Visual recognition of the female body axis drives spatial elements of male courtship in Drosophila melanogaster

McKinney

Ben‐Shahar

2019

Preprint

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Like other mating behaviors, the courtship ritual exhibited by male Drosophila towards a virgin female is comprised of spatiotemporal sequences of innate behavioral elements. Yet, the specific stimuli and neural circuits that determine when and where males release individual courtship elements are not well understood. Here, we investigated the role of visual object recognition in the release of specific behavioral elements during bouts of male courtship. By using a computer vision and machine learning based approach for high-resolution analyses of the male courtship ritual, we show that the release of distinct behavioral elements occur at stereotyped locations around the female and depends on the ability of males to recognize visual landmarks present on the female.Specifically, we show that independent of female motion, males utilize unique populations of visual projection neurons to recognize the eyes of a target female, which is essential for the release of courtship behaviors at their appropriate spatial locations. Together, these results provide a mechanistic explanation for how relatively simple visual cues could play a role in driving both spatiallyand temporally-complex social interactions.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 49%

Visual recognition of the female body axis drives spatial elements of male courtship in Drosophila melanogaster

McKinney

Ben‐Shahar

2019

Preprint

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“…In the next phase of model development, we will start with some of the most robust innate behaviors, such as the escape response, in which fruit flies jump directly away from a looming threat (von Reyn et al 2017). A looming threat can be simulated by presenting a booming visual stimulus on the small field neurons in the unilateral medulla, while the initiation of the escape behavior can be represented by the activation of the giant fiber neurons (Tanouye and Wyman 1980).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A single-cell level and connectome-derived computational model of the Drosophila brain

Huang

Wang

et al. 2018

Preprint

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Computer simulations play an important role in testing hypotheses, integrating knowledge, and providing predictions of neural circuit functions. While considerable effort has been dedicated into simulating primate or rodent brains, the fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) is becoming a promising model animal in computational neuroscience for its small brain size, complex cognitive behavior, and abundancy of data available from genes to circuits.Moreover, several Drosophila connectome projects have generated a large number of neuronal images that account for a significant portion of the brain, making a systematic investigation of the whole brain circuit possible. Supported by FlyCircuit (http://www.flycircuit.tw), one of the largest Drosophila neuron image databases, we began a long-term project with the goal to construct a whole-brain spiking network model of the Drosophila brain. In this paper, we report the outcome of the first phase of the project. We developed the Flysim platform, which 1) identifies the polarity of each neuron arbor, 2) predicts connections between neurons, 3) translates morphology data from the database into physiology parameters for computational modeling, 4) reconstructs a brain-wide network model, which consists of 20,089 neurons and 1,044,020 synapses, and 5) performs computer simulations of the resting state. We compared the reconstructed brain network with a randomized brain network by shuffling the connections of each neuron. We found that the reconstructed brain can be easily stabilized by implementing synaptic short-term depression, while the randomized one exhibited seizure-like firing activity under the same treatment.Furthermore, the reconstructed Drosophila brain was structurally and dynamically more diverse than the randomized one and exhibited both Poisson-like and patterned firing activities. Despite being at its early stage of development, this single-cell level brain model allows us to study some of the fundamental properties of neural networks including network balance, critical behavior, long-term stability, and plasticity.All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission.(which was not peer-reviewed) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.

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“…Here, we showed that P9 receives inputs from LCs that serve as feature detectors, arguing that P9 participates in a shallow pathway from visual detection to motor command. Direct connections between visual projection neurons and DNs are also seen in the Giant Fiber escape pathway (Klapoetke et al, 2017;von Reyn et al, 2017;Strausfeld and Bassemir, 1983) and in visually guided flight control (Strausfeld and Gronenberg, 1990;Suver et al, 2016), suggesting a common circuit motif to minimize response times when rapid action is required.…”

Section: The P9 Walking Program Provides Steering Control During Objementioning

confidence: 99%

Two brain pathways initiate distinct forward walking programs inDrosophila

Bidaye¹,

Laturney²,

Chang³

et al. 2019

Preprint

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An animal at rest or engaged in stationary behaviors can instantaneously initiate goaldirected walking. How descending brain inputs trigger rapid transitions from a non-walking state to an appropriate walking state is unclear. Here, we identify two specific neuronal classes in the Drosophila brain that drive two distinct forward walking programs in a context-specific manner.The first class, named P9, consists of descending neurons that drive forward walking with ipsilateral turning. P9 receives inputs from central courtship-promoting neurons and visual projection neurons and is necessary for a male to track a female during courtship. The second class comprises novel, higher order neurons, named BPN, that drives straight, forward walking. BPN is required for high velocity walking and is active during long, fast, straight walking bouts. Thus, this study reveals separate brain pathways for object-directed steering and fast straight walking, providing insight into how the brain initiates different walking programs.Raw and processed data along with custom Matlab analysis scripts will be made available upon request. Design files for custom parts will be available upon request.Ache, J.M., Haupt, S.S., and Dürr, V. (2015). A direct descending pathway informing locomotor networks about tactile sensor movement.

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Feature Integration Drives Probabilistic Behavior in the Drosophila Escape Response

Cited by 126 publications

References 73 publications

Visual recognition of the female body axis drives spatial elements of male courtship in Drosophila melanogaster

Visual recognition of the female body axis drives spatial elements of male courtship in Drosophila melanogaster

A single-cell level and connectome-derived computational model of the Drosophila brain

Two brain pathways initiate distinct forward walking programs inDrosophila

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