Active antennal movements in Drosophila can tune wind encoding.

Insects use their antennae to smell odors, detect auditory cues, and sense mechanosensory stimuli such as wind and objects, frequently by combining sensory processing with active movements. Genetic access to antennal motor systems would therefore provide a powerful tool for dissecting the circuit mechanisms underlying active sensing, but little is known about how the most genetically tractable insect, Drosophila melanogaster, moves its antennae. Here, we use deep learning to measure how tethered Drosophila move their antennae in the presence of sensory stimuli and identify genetic reagents for controlling antennal movement.

A neural circuit for wind-guided olfactory navigation.

To navigate towards a food source, animals frequently combine odor cues about source identity with wind direction cues about source location. Where and how these two cues are integrated to support navigation is unclear. Here we describe a pathway to the Drosophila fan-shaped body that encodes attractive odor and promotes upwind navigation.