A neuronal ensemble encoding adaptive choice during sensory conflict in Drosophila

Preeti F Sareen,Li Yan Mccurdy,Michael N Nitabach

doi:10.1038/s41467-021-24423-y

Abstract

Feeding decisions are fundamental to survival, and decision making is often disrupted in disease. Here, we show that neural activity in a small population of neurons projecting to the fan-shaped body higher-order central brain region of Drosophila represents food choice during sensory conflict. We found that food deprived flies made tradeoffs between appetitive and aversive values of food. We identified an upstream neuropeptidergic and dopaminergic network that relays internal state and other decision-relevant information to a specific subset of fan-shaped body neurons. These neurons were strongly inhibited by the taste of the rejected food choice, suggesting that they encode behavioral food choice. Our findings reveal that fan-shaped body taste responses to food choices are determined not only by taste quality, but also by previous experience (including choice outcome) and hunger state, which are integrated in the fan-shaped body to encode the decision before relay to downstream motor circuits for behavioral implementation.

Highlights

Feeding decisions are fundamental to survival, and decision making is often disrupted in disease
Since inhibition of Allatostatin A (AstA), DH44, and Lk neurons is equivalent to receptor RNAi of these neuropeptides in target neurons such as fan-shaped body layer 6 neurons (FBl6), and both of these manipulations produce the same shift in preference for bittersweet as optogenetic inhibition of FBl6 neurons alone, these findings strongly suggest that inhibition of AstA, DH44, and Lk neurons results in inhibition of FBl6 neurons
We hypothesize that the dopaminergic neurons we identified regulating food choice modulate the activity of AstA, DH44, and NPF neurons (Fig. 2b–e), and thereby indirectly influence FBl6 neurons to modulate sweet-bittersweet choice

Summary

Introduction

Feeding decisions are fundamental to survival, and decision making is often disrupted in disease. We show that neural activity in a small population of neurons projecting to the fan-shaped body higher-order central brain region of Drosophila represents food choice during sensory conflict. We identified an upstream neuropeptidergic and dopaminergic network that relays internal state and other decision-relevant information to a specific subset of fan-shaped body neurons. These neurons were strongly inhibited by the taste of the rejected food choice, suggesting that they encode behavioral food choice. 1234567890():,; Animals integrate food-related sensory information from their external environment with their internal state in order to make adaptive decisions. We report an ensemble of neurons in the central brain of a hungry fly that makes value-based decisions, using an experimental paradigm in which freely foraging flies sample and choose between different sweet and bittersweet foods

Methods

Results

Conclusion