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5 Janelia Publications
Showing 1-5 of 5 resultsDrosophila melanogaster is an established model for neuroscience research with relevance in biology and medicine. Until recently, research on the Drosophila brain was hindered by the lack of a complete and uniform nomenclature. Recognizing this, Ito et al. (2014) produced an authoritative nomenclature for the adult insect brain, using Drosophila as the reference. Here, we extend this nomenclature to the adult thoracic and abdominal neuromeres, the ventral nerve cord (VNC), to provide an anatomical description of this major component of the Drosophila nervous system. The VNC is the locus for the reception and integration of sensory information and involved in generating most of the locomotor actions that underlie fly behaviors. The aim is to create a nomenclature, definitions, and spatial boundaries for the Drosophila VNC that are consistent with other insects. The work establishes an anatomical framework that provides a powerful tool for analyzing the functional organization of the VNC.
Visually guided decision-making requires integration of information from distributed brain areas, necessitating a brain-wide approach to examine its neural mechanisms. New tools in Drosophila melanogaster enable circuits spanning the brain to be charted with single cell-type resolution. Here, we highlight recent advances uncovering the computations and circuits that transform and integrate visual information across the brain to make behavioral choices. Visual information flows from the optic lobes to three primary central brain regions: a sensorimotor mapping area and two 'higher' centers for memory or spatial orientation. Rapid decision-making during predator evasion emerges from the spike timing dynamics in parallel sensorimotor cascades. Goal-directed decisions may occur through memory, navigation and valence processing in the central complex and mushroom bodies.
Visually guided decision-making requires integration of information from distributed brain areas, necessitating a brain-wide approach to examine its neural mechanisms. New tools in Drosophila melanogaster enable circuits spanning the brain to be charted with single cell-type resolution. Here, we highlight recent advances uncovering the computations and circuits that transform and integrate visual information across the brain to make behavioral choices. Visual information flows from the optic lobes to three primary central brain regions: a sensorimotor mapping area and two 'higher' centers for memory or spatial orientation. Rapid decision-making during predator evasion emerges from the spike timing dynamics in parallel sensorimotor cascades. Goal-directed decisions may occur through memory, navigation and valence processing in the central complex and mushroom bodies.
Many animals rely on acoustic cues to decide what action to take next. Unraveling the wiring patterns of the auditory neural pathways is prerequisite for understanding such information processing. Here we reconstructed the first step of the auditory neural pathway in the fruit fly brain, from primary to secondary auditory neurons, at the resolution of transmission electron microscopy. By tracing axons of two major subgroups of auditory sensory neurons in fruit flies, low-frequency tuned Johnston's organ (JO)-B neurons and high-frequency tuned JO-A neurons, we observed extensive connections from JO-B neurons to the main second-order neurons in both the song-relay and escape pathways. In contrast, JO-A neurons connected strongly to a neuron in the escape pathway. Our findings suggest that heterogeneous JO neuronal populations could be recruited to modify escape behavior whereas only specific JO neurons contribute to courtship behavior. We also found that all JO neurons have postsynaptic sites at their axons. Presynaptic modulation at the output sites of JO neurons could affect information processing of the auditory neural pathway in flies. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.