Corollary discharge promotes a sustained motor state in a neural circuit for navigation.

Animals exhibit behavioral and neural responses that persist on longer timescales than transient or fluctuating stimulus inputs. Here, we report that uses feedback from the motor circuit to a sensory processing interneuron to sustain its motor state during thermotactic navigation. By imaging circuit activity in behaving animals, we show that a principal postsynaptic partner of the AFD thermosensory neuron, the AIY interneuron, encodes both temperature and motor state information.