Behavioral state modulates the ON visual motion pathway of Drosophila.

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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 2017 Dec 18;115(1):E102-11. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1703090115

Behavioral state modulates the ON visual motion pathway of Drosophila. Reiser LabRubin LabFly Functional Connectome

Strother JA, Wu S, Rogers EM, Eliason JL, Wong AM, Nern A, Reiser MB

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Abstract

The behavioral state of an animal can dynamically modulate visual processing. In flies, the behavioral state is known to alter the temporal tuning of neurons that carry visual motion information into the central brain. However, where this modulation occurs and how it tunes the properties of this neural circuit are not well understood. Here, we show that the behavioral state alters the baseline activity levels and the temporal tuning of the first directionally selective neuron in the ON motion pathway (T4) as well as its primary input neurons (Mi1, Tm3, Mi4, Mi9). These effects are especially prominent in the inhibitory neuron Mi4, and we show that central octopaminergic neurons provide input to Mi4 and increase its excitability. We further show that octopamine neurons are required for sustained behavioral responses to fast-moving, but not slow-moving, visual stimuli in walking flies. These results indicate that behavioral-state modulation acts directly on the inputs to the directionally selective neurons and supports efficient neural coding of motion stimuli.

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Behavioral state modulates the ON visual motion pathway of Drosophila.

Abstract

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