Université de Fribourg

Dedicated photoreceptor pathways in Drosophila larvae mediate navigation by processing either spatial or temporal cues

Humberg, Tim-Henning ; Bruegger, Pascal ; Afonso, Bruno ; Zlatic, Marta ; Truman, James W. ; Gershow, Marc ; Samuel, Aravinthan ; Sprecher, Simon G.

In: Nature Communications, 2018, vol. 9, no. 1, p. 1260

To integrate changing environmental cues with high spatial and temporal resolution is critical for animals to orient themselves. Drosophila larvae show an effective motor program to navigate away from light sources. How the larval visual circuit processes light stimuli to control navigational decision remains unknown. The larval visual system is composed of two sensory input channels,...

Université de Fribourg

Organization of the Drosophila larval visual circuit

Larderet, Ivan ; Fritsch, Pauline ; Gendre, Nanae ; Maier, Larisa ; Fetter, Rick D. ; Schneider-Mizell, Casey ; Truman, James ; Zlatic, Marta ; Cardona, Albert ; Sprecher, Simon

Visual systems transduce, process and transmit light-dependent environmental cues. Computation of visual features depends on the types of photoreceptor neurons (PR) present, the organization of the eye and the wiring of the underlying neural circuit. Here, we describe the circuit architecture of the visual system of Drosophila larvae by mapping the synaptic wiring diagram and...

Université de Fribourg

Four individually identified paired dopamine neurons signal reward in larval Drosophila

Rohwedder, Astrid ; Wenz, Nana L. ; Stehle, Bernhard ; Huser, Annina ; Yamagata, Nobuhiro ; Zlatic, Marta ; Truman, James W. ; Tanimoto, Hiromu ; Saumweber, Timo ; Gerber, Bertram ; Thum, Andreas S.

In: Current Biology, 2016, vol. 26, no. 5, p. 661–669

Dopaminergic neurons serve multiple functions, including reinforcement processing during associative learning [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12]. It is thus warranted to understand which dopaminergic neurons mediate which function. We study larval Drosophila, in which only approximately 120 of a total of 10,000 neurons are dopaminergic, as judged by the expression of tyrosine...

Université de Fribourg

Sensory determinants of behavioral dynamics in Drosophila thermotaxis

Klein, Mason ; Afonso, Bruno ; Vonner, Ashley J. ; Hernandez-Nunez, Luis ; Berck, Matthew ; Tabone, Christopher J. ; Kane, Elizabeth A. ; Pieribone, Vincent A. ; Nitabach, Michael N. ; Cardona, Albert ; Zlatic, Marta ; Sprecher, Simon G. ; Gershow, Marc ; Garrity, Paul A. ; Samuel, Aravinthan D. T.

In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2014, vol. 112, no. 2, p. E220–E229

Complex animal behaviors are built from dynamical relationships between sensory inputs, neuronal activity, and motor outputs in patterns with strategic value. Connecting these patterns illuminates how nervous systems compute behavior. Here, we study Drosophila larva navigation up temperature gradients toward preferred temperatures (positive thermotaxis). By tracking the movements of animals...