Untitled

Abstract

The question of the roles of the two main parts of the insect brain, the mushroom bodies and the central complex, in controlling motor coordination and triggering a variety of behavioral programs, including sound production, remains controversial. With the aim of improving our understanding of this question, we studied the parameters of songs used by five-day-old males during courtship for fertilized wild-type females (Canton-S, C-S) over 5-min periods at 25 degrees C; males were of two wild-type Drosophila melanogaster lines (Berlin and C-S). Berlin males lacking mushroom bodies because of treatment with hydroxyurea during development (chemical removal of the mushroom bodies) were used, along with two mutants with defects in the mushroom bodies (mbm1 and mud1), two mutants with defects in the central complex (ccbKS127 and cexKS181), and mutant cxbN71 with defects in both the mushroom bodies and the central complex. The experiments reported here showed that courtship songs in males lacking mushroom bodies were virtually identical to those of wild-type males. The main parameters of pulsatile song in mutants mbm1 and mud1 (interpulse interval and train duration) were insignificantly different from those of the songs of wild-type flies, though the stability of the pulse oscillator was the same. Flies of these lines were no different from wild-type flies in terms of courtship success (percentage of copulating pairs in 10-min tests). Conversely, the songs of mutants with defects in the central complex differed from those of wild-type males. Firstly, there was degradation of the stability of the pulse oscillator and interpulse intervals were very variable. In addition, pulses were often significantly longer and appeared multicyclic, as in the well-known cacophony mutant, while the mean train duration was significantly shorter. Males of the line cexKS181 usually courted very intensely, though abnormal sounds were generally emitted. Mutants cexKS181 and ccbKS127 were significantly less successful in courtship than wild-type flies. These data show that the central complex appears to play a very important role in controlling song, while the mushroom bodies are not related to this function.

Neuroarchitecture and neuroanatomy of the Drosophila central complex: A GAL4‐based dissection of protocerebral bridge neurons and circuits

“…The central complex serves as an integration center for diverse motor, sensory, learning, and memory activities in insects. It is involved in coordinating locomotor behavior, including flight and various aspects of walking in flies and cockroaches (Bausenwein et al, 1986 ; Strauss and Heisenberg, 1993 ; Ilius et al, 1994 ; Martin et al, 1999 ; Ridgel et al, 2007 ; Bender et al, 2010 ); visual stripe fixation as well as the initiation, organization, and integration of behavior (Bausenwein et al, 1994 ); visual feature processing (Seelig and Jayaraman, 2013 ); sensory-guided changes in orientation and locomotion in the cockroach (Bender et al, 2010 ; Guo and Ritzmann, 2013 ); various types of memory in flies (Liu et al, 2006 ; Neuser et al, 2008 ; Pan et al, 2009 ; Ofstad et al, 2011 ; Kuntz et al, 2012 ); angular reach in gap crossing (Triphan et al, 2010 ); sleep (Donlea et al, 2011 ; Donlea et al, 2014 ); sound production during courtship (Popov et al, 2003 ); gravitaxis (Baker et al, 2007 ); and in sun-compass navigation in the locust and monarch butterfly (Heinze and Homberg, 2007 ; Heinze and Reppert, 2011 ).…”

A Putative Vesicular Transporter Expressed in Drosophila Mushroom Bodies that Mediates Sexual Behavior May Define a Neurotransmitter System

“…Furthermore, both the MBs and central complex (CCX) have been linked to aspects of sexual behavior (O’Dell et al, 1995; Popov et al, 2003; Sakai and Kitamoto, 2006). Sexual behavior has been studied extensively in the fly with a particular focus on courtship, although a handful of mutations affecting copulation have been described (Yamamoto et al, 1997).…”

Modeling neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental disorders in theDrosophilamushroom body

“…This allows sensory information to drive different behavioral responses in a context-dependent manner ( Aso et al 2014b ). Multimodal sensory signals are processed in the MB including visual, olfactory, gustatory, tactile, and auditory stimuli ( Wolf et al 1998 ; Liu et al 1999 ; Popov et al 2003 ; Kirkhart and Scott 2015 ; Vogt et al 2016 ). Information is processed and modified by experience to alter learned behaviors via plasticity in the MB ( Yu et al 2005 , 2006 ; Séjourné et al 2011 ; Perisse et al 2013 ; Tomchik and Davis 2013 ; Boto et al 2014 , 2019 ; Cohn et al 2015 ; Hige et al 2015 ; Yamagata et al 2015 ; Berry et al 2018 ; Louis et al 2018 ; Handler et al 2019 ; Phan et al 2019 ; Zhang et al 2019 ; Bilz et al 2020 ; Baltruschat et al 2021 ; Stahl et al 2022 ).…”