Publications by authors named "Nora Forknall"
Article Synopsis
- Choosing a mate is crucial for female flies, who signal their readiness to copulate through vaginal plate opening (VPO) in response to male courtship songs.
- The neural circuitry involved in VPO includes female-specific descending neurons (vpoDNs) that receive inputs from auditory neurons sensitive to specific song features and pC1 neurons indicating female mating status.
- After mating, the responsiveness of vpoDNs to courtship songs decreases, leading to reduced receptivity in mated females, highlighting how internal and external signals are integrated to influence mating decisions in Drosophila.
The neural circuits responsible for animal behavior remain largely unknown. We summarize new methods and present the circuitry of a large fraction of the brain of the fruit fly . Improved methods include new procedures to prepare, image, align, segment, find synapses in, and proofread such large data sets.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe mating decisions of Drosophila melanogaster females are primarily revealed through either of two discrete actions: opening of the vaginal plates to allow copulation, or extrusion of the ovipositor to reject the male. Both actions are triggered by the male courtship song, and both are dependent upon the female's mating status. Virgin females are more likely to open their vaginal plates in response to song; mated females are more likely to extrude their ovipositor.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMating and egg laying are tightly cooordinated events in the reproductive life of all oviparous females. Oviposition is typically rare in virgin females but is initiated after copulation. Here we identify the neural circuitry that links egg laying to mating status in Drosophila melanogaster.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF