Yang Chung-Hui, Belawat Priyanka, Hafen Ernst, Jan Lily Y, Jan Yuh-Nung
Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Department of Physiology, Biochemistry, and Biophysics, University of California at San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143-0725, USA.
Science. 2008 Mar 21;319(5870):1679-83. doi: 10.1126/science.1151842.
The ability to select a better option from multiple acceptable ones is important for animals to optimize their resources. The mechanisms that underlie such decision-making processes are not well understood. We found that selection of egg-laying site in Drosophila melanogaster is a suitable system to probe the neural circuit that governs simple decision-making processes. First, Drosophila females pursue active probing of the environment before depositing each egg, apparently to evaluate site quality for every egg. Second, Drosophila females can either accept or reject a sucrose-containing medium, depending on the context. Last, communication of the "acceptability" of the sucrose-containing medium as an egg-laying option to the reproductive system depends on the function of a group of insulin-like peptide 7 (ILP7)-producing neurons. These findings suggest that selection of egg-laying site involves a simple decision-making process and provide an entry point toward a systematic dissection of this process.
从多个可接受的选项中选择更好的选项的能力对于动物优化其资源很重要。这种决策过程背后的机制尚未得到很好的理解。我们发现，黑腹果蝇的产卵地点选择是一个合适的系统，可用于探究控制简单决策过程的神经回路。首先，果蝇雌性在产下每枚卵之前会积极探索环境，显然是为了评估每枚卵的地点质量。其次，果蝇雌性可以根据具体情况接受或拒绝含蔗糖的培养基。最后，将含蔗糖培养基作为产卵选项的“可接受性”传递给生殖系统取决于一组产生胰岛素样肽7（ILP7）的神经元的功能。这些发现表明，产卵地点的选择涉及一个简单的决策过程，并为系统剖析这一过程提供了一个切入点。
