Department of Anatomy and Program in Neuroscience, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94158.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2013 Dec 24;110(52):21153-8. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1320208110. Epub 2013 Dec 9.
The neural circuits that mediate behavioral choice evaluate and integrate information from the environment with internal demands and then initiate a behavioral response. Even circuits that support simple decisions remain poorly understood. In Drosophila melanogaster, oviposition on a substrate containing ethanol enhances fitness; however, little is known about the neural mechanisms mediating this important choice behavior. Here, we characterize the neural modulation of this simple choice and show that distinct subsets of dopaminergic neurons compete to either enhance or inhibit egg-laying preference for ethanol-containing food. Moreover, activity in α'β' neurons of the mushroom body and a subset of ellipsoid body ring neurons (R2) is required for this choice. We propose a model where competing dopaminergic systems modulate oviposition preference to adjust to changes in natural oviposition substrates.
介导行为选择的神经回路评估和整合来自环境的信息与内部需求，然后启动行为反应。即使是支持简单决策的回路也知之甚少。在黑腹果蝇中，在含有乙醇的基质上产卵会提高适应性；然而，对于介导这种重要选择行为的神经机制知之甚少。在这里，我们描述了这种简单选择的神经调节，并表明多巴胺能神经元的不同亚群竞争以增强或抑制对含乙醇食物的产卵偏好。此外，蘑菇体的α'β'神经元和一部分椭圆体环神经元（R2）的活性对于这种选择是必需的。我们提出了一个模型，其中竞争的多巴胺能系统调节产卵偏好，以适应自然产卵基质的变化。
