Multisensory Control of Orientation in Tethered Flying Drosophila

Abstract

Summary A longstanding goal of systems neuroscience is to quantitatively describe how the brain integrates sensory cues over time. Here we develop a closed-loop orienting paradigm in Drosophila to study the algorithms by which cues from two modalities are integrated during ongoing behavior. We find that flies exhibit two behaviors when presented simultaneously with an attractive visual stripe and aversive wind cue. First, flies perform a turn sequence where they initially turn away from the wind and but later turn back toward the stripe, suggesting dynamic sensory processing. Second, turns toward the stripe are slowed by the presence of competing wind, suggesting summation of turning drives. We develop a model in which signals each modality are filtered in space and time to generate turn commands, then summed to produce ongoing orienting behavior. This computational framework correctly predicts behavioral dynamics for a range of stimulus intensities and spatial arrangements.

Encoding and control of airflow orientation by a set ofDrosophilafan-shaped body neurons

“…1F). While response magnitudes no doubt depend on stimulus intensity (airflow velocity, stripe contrast, and odor concentration), we know that our visual and airflow cues elicit orienting responses of approximately equal magnitude in a flight simulator (Currier and Nagel, 2018).…”

“…This turn signal drives rotations of an airflow tube, allowing flies to control their orientation with respect to that flow. In previous experiments, we observed that flies prefer to orient away from the source of flow (Currier and Nagel, 2018). are relative to the hemisphere of connected ventral P-FN cell bodies.…”

Encoding and control of orientation to airflow by a set of Drosophila fan-shaped body neurons

“…1A & 1B,right). Flies fixate vertical stripes while walking and in flight (Reichardt and Poggio, 1976;Heisenberg and Wolf, 1979;Maimon et al 2008) and tend to orient away from an airflow source (Currier andNagel 2018, Kaushik et al, 2020). The addition of an attractive odorant to airflow switches orientation from downwind to upwind (van Bruegel et al 2014, Alvarez-Salvado 2018.…”

“…Stimulus delivery was achieved by a modified version of a perviously used system (Currier and Nagel, 2018).…”

Multimodal cue integration in the dung beetle compass

“…In contrast to beetles, which orient in any direction relative to the wind ( Fig. 2E), tethered flying fruit flies rather exhibit an anemotactic behavior when tested in the presence of an apparent wind stimulus (35,36). A strong deflection of the antennae, generated by fast self-motion, most likely prevents dung beetles from using their wind compass when moving through the air.…”