Multisensory Control of Orientation in Tethered Flying Drosophila

Currier, Timothy A.; Nagel, Katherine I.

doi:10.1016/j.cub.2018.09.020

Cited by 18 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 56 publications

(84 reference statements)

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“…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).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…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.…”

Section: Ventral P-fns Are Required To Orient To Airflow In Tetheredmentioning

confidence: 80%

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

Nagel

Currier

Matheson

2020

Preprint

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How brain circuits convert sensory signals from diverse modalities into goal-oriented movements is a central question in neuroscience. In insects, a brain region known as the Central Complex (Cx) is believed to support navigation, but how this area organizes and processes diverse sensory cues is not clear. We recorded from genetically-identified Cx cell types in Drosophila and presented directional visual, olfactory, and airflow cues known to elicit orienting behavior. We found that a group of columnar neurons targeting the ventral fan-shaped body (ventral P-FNs) were consistently tuned for airflow direction. Silencing these neurons prevented flies from adopting stable orientations relative to airflow in closed-loop flight. Specifically, silenced flies selected improper corrective turns following changes in airflow direction, but not following airflow offset, suggesting a specific deficit in sensory-motor conversion. Our work provides insight into the organization and function of the insect navigation center.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 90%

Section: Ventral P-fns Are Required To Orient To Airflow In Tetheredmentioning

confidence: 80%

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

Nagel

Currier

Matheson

2020

Preprint

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“…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.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Section: Stimulus Deliverymentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Currier

Matheson

Nagel

2020

eLife

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The insect central complex (CX) is thought to underlie goal-oriented navigation but its functional organization is not fully understood. We recorded from genetically-identified CX cell types in Drosophila and presented directional visual, olfactory, and airflow cues known to elicit orienting behavior. We found that a group of neurons targeting the ventral fan-shaped body (ventral P-FNs) are robustly tuned for airflow direction. Ventral P-FNs did not generate a ‘map’ of airflow direction. Instead, cells in each hemisphere were tuned to 45° ipsilateral, forming a pair of orthogonal bases. Imaging experiments suggest that ventral P-FNs inherit their airflow tuning from neurons that provide input from the lateral accessory lobe (LAL) to the noduli (NO). Silencing ventral P-FNs prevented flies from selecting appropriate corrective turns following changes in airflow direction. Our results identify a group of CX neurons that robustly encode airflow direction and are required for proper orientation to this stimulus.

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“…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.…”

Section: Dung Beetles Use a Dynamic Multimodal Compass System For Strmentioning

confidence: 94%

Multimodal cue integration in the dung beetle compass

Dacke

Bell

Foster

et al. 2019

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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South African ball-rolling dung beetles exhibit a unique orientation behavior to avoid competition for food: after forming a piece of dung into a ball, they efficiently escape with it from the dung pile along a straight-line path. To keep track of their heading, these animals use celestial cues, such as the sun, as an orientation reference. Here we show that wind can also be used as a guiding cue for the ball-rolling beetles. We demonstrate that this mechanosensory compass cue is only used when skylight cues are difficult to read, i.e., when the sun is close to the zenith. This raises the question of how the beetles combine multimodal orientation input to obtain a robust heading estimate. To study this, we performed behavioral experiments in a tightly controlled indoor arena. This revealed that the beetles register directional information provided by the sun and the wind and can use them in a weighted manner. Moreover, the directional information can be transferred between these 2 sensory modalities, suggesting that they are combined in the spatial memory network in the beetle’s brain. This flexible use of compass cue preferences relative to the prevailing visual and mechanosensory scenery provides a simple, yet effective, mechanism for enabling precise compass orientation at any time of the day.

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Multisensory Control of Orientation in Tethered Flying Drosophila

Cited by 18 publications

References 56 publications

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

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

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

Multimodal cue integration in the dung beetle compass

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