Dopamine modulation of sensory processing and adaptive behavior in flies.

Behavioral flexibility for appropriate action selection is an advantage when animals are faced with decisions that will determine their survival or death. In order to arrive at the right decision, animals evaluate information from their external environment, internal state, and past experiences. How these different signals are integrated and modulated in the brain, and how context- and state-dependent behavioral decisions are controlled are poorly understood questions.

Valence and State-Dependent Population Coding in Dopaminergic Neurons in the Fly Mushroom Body.

Neuromodulation permits flexibility of synapses, neural circuits, and ultimately behavior. One neuromodulator, dopamine, has been studied extensively in its role as a reward signal during learning and memory across animal species. Newer evidence suggests that dopaminergic neurons (DANs) can modulate sensory perception acutely, thereby allowing an animal to adapt its behavior and decision making to its internal and behavioral state.

A Neural Circuit Arbitrates between Persistence and Withdrawal in Hungry Drosophila.

In pursuit of food, hungry animals mobilize significant energy resources and overcome exhaustion and fear. How need and motivation control the decision to continue or change behavior is not understood. Using a single fly treadmill, we show that hungry flies persistently track a food odor and increase their effort over repeated trials in the absence of reward suggesting that need dominates negative experience.

Evolution of Multiple Sensory Systems Drives Novel Egg-Laying Behavior in the Fruit Pest Drosophila suzukii.

The rise of a pest species represents a unique opportunity to address how species evolve new behaviors and adapt to novel ecological niches [1]. We address this question by studying the egg-laying behavior of Drosophila suzukii, an invasive agricultural pest species that has spread from Southeast Asia to Europe and North America in the last decade [2]. While most closely related Drosophila species lay their eggs on decaying plant substrates, D.