Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Feb;51(3):822-839.
doi: 10.1111/ejn.14648. Epub 2019 Dec 30.

Dopamine modulates the optomotor response to unreliable visual stimuli in Drosophila melanogaster

Masumi Akiba  1 , Kentaro Sugimoto  1   2 , Risa Aoki  1 , Ryo Murakami  1 , Tomoyuki Miyashita  3 , Riho Hashimoto  1 , Anna Hiranuma  1 , Junji Yamauchi  1 , Taro Ueno  4 , Takako Morimoto  1
Affiliations

Dopamine modulates the optomotor response to unreliable visual stimuli in Drosophila melanogaster

Masumi Akiba et al. Eur J Neurosci. 2020 Feb.

Abstract

State-dependent modulation of sensory systems has been studied in many organisms and is possibly mediated through neuromodulators such as monoamine neurotransmitters. Among these, dopamine is involved in many aspects of animal behaviour, including movement control, attention, motivation and cognition. However, the precise neural mechanism underlying dopaminergic modulation of behaviour induced by sensory stimuli remains poorly understood. Here, we used Drosophila melanogaster to show that dopamine can modulate the optomotor response to moving visual stimuli including noise. The optomotor response is the head-turning response to moving objects, which is observed in most sight-reliant animals including mammals and insects. First, the effects of the dopamine system on the optomotor response were investigated in mutant flies deficient in dopamine receptors D1R1 or D1R2, which are involved in the modulation of sleep-arousal in flies. We examined the optomotor response in D1R1 knockout (D1R1 KO) and D1R2 knockout (D1R2 KO) flies and found that it was not affected in D1R1 KO flies; however, it was significantly reduced in D1R2 KO flies compared with the wild type. Using cell-type-specific expression of an RNA interference construct of D1R2, we identified the fan-shaped body, a part of the central complex, responsible for dopamine-mediated modulation of the optomotor response. In particular, pontine cells in the fan-shaped body seemed important in the modulation of the optomotor response, and their neural activity was required for the optomotor response. These results suggest a novel role of the central complex in the modulation of a behaviour based on the processing of sensory stimulations.

Keywords: central complex; dopamine receptor; fan-shaped body; noise; pontine neurons.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

REFERENCES

    1. Andermann, M. L., Kerlin, A. M., Roumis, D. K., Glickfeld, L. L., & Reid, R. C. (2011). Functional specialization of mouse higher visual cortical areas. Neuron, 72, 1025-1039. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2011.11.013
    1. Andrade, I. V., Riebli, N., Nguyen, B.-C.- M., Omoto, J. J., Cardona, A., & Hartenstein, V. (2019). Developmentally arrested precursors of pontine neurons establish an embryonic blueprint of the Drosophila central complex. Current Biology, 29, 412-425.
    1. Asashina, K., Watanabe, K., Duistermars, B. J., Hoopfer, E., González, C. R., Eyjólfsdóttir, E. A., … Anderson, D. J. (2014). Tachykinin-expressing neurons control male-specific aggressive arousal in Drosophila. Cell, 156, 221-235. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2013.11.045
    1. Aso, Y., Grȕbel, K., Busch, S., Friedrich, A. B., Siwanowicz, I., & Tanimoto, H. (2009). The mushroom body of adult Drosophila characterized by GAL4 drivers. Journal of Neurogenetics, 23, 156-172.
    1. Baines, R., Uhler, J. P., Thompson, A., Sweeney, S. T., & Bate, M. (2001). Altered electrical properties in Drosophila neurons developing without synaptic transmission. Journal of Neuroscience, 21, 1523-1531.

Publication types