Social attraction in Drosophila is regulated by the mushroom body and serotonergic system

Abstract

Sociality is among the most important motivators of human behaviour. However, the neural mechanisms determining levels of sociality are largely unknown, primarily due to a lack of suitable animal models. Here, we report the presence of a surprising degree of general sociality in Drosophila. A newly-developed paradigm to study social approach behaviour in flies reveal that social cues perceive through both vision and olfaction converged in a central brain region, the γ lobe of the mushroom body, which exhibite activation in response to social experience. The activity of these γ neurons control the motivational drive for social interaction. At the molecular level, the serotonergic system is critical for social affinity. These results demonstrate that Drosophila are highly sociable, providing a suitable model system for elucidating the mechanisms underlying the motivation for sociality.

Neuromolecular and behavioral effects of ethanol deprivation inDrosophila

“…The MB is also required for social transference of memory for the presence of a predator [86]. More recently, social cues encoded in MB gamma neurons were shown to be required for social attraction [87]. Our results add to these findings by implicating the MB and surrounding neuropil in long-lasting adaptations in social behavior by ethanol.…”

Using Flies to Understand Social Networks

“…It remains difficult to define how differences in precise network measures of mutants translate to differences in social organization, especially since various social network experiments utilize different methods of generating and analyzing networks. However, experiments that focused on social attraction and aggregation of flies used similar mutants and transgenic tools and found overlapping results to social network studies (Bentzur et al, 2020;Jiang et al, 2020;Sun et al, 2020). For example, Sun et al (2020) reported that a combination of both vision and olfaction are crucial for the social attraction behavior of flies.…”

“…These olfactory receptors are known to be sensitive to cVA, a male-specific pheromone that mediates aggressive and copulatory behaviors in male flies (Bontonou and Wicker-Thomas, 2014). Interestingly, flies with inhibited Or67d neurons did not produce social networks drastically different from wild-type flies despite there being evidence that Or67d plays a role in social attraction (Bentzur et al, 2020;Sun et al, 2020). However, the inhibition of Or65a neurons leads to a significantly decreased average betweenness centrality (Bentzur et al, 2020).…”

The gut-microbiota-brain axis in autism: what Drosophila models can offer?

“…Furthermore, germ-free Drosophila can be re-conventionalized with a standardized microbiota to study the role of specific microorganisms. Drosophila presents a repertoire of behaviors and many of these could be used to study core features of autism, like anxiety [ 79 ], social interactions [ 80 ], and light-pulse habituation [ 81 ] (Fig. 2 ).…”