| Title: | "Motivation, Perception, and Chance Converge to Make a Binary Decision" |
| Author(s): | Zhang SX; Miner LE; Boutros CL; Rogulja D; Crickmore MA; |
| Address: | "Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA. FM Kirby Neurobiology Center, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA. Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA. Electronic address: dragana_rogulja@hms.harvard.edu. FM Kirby Neurobiology Center, Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA. Electronic address: michael.crickmore@childrens.harvard.edu" |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.neuron.2018.06.014 |
| ISSN/ISBN: | 1097-4199 (Electronic) 0896-6273 (Print) 0896-6273 (Linking) |
| Abstract: | "We reveal a central role for chance neuronal events in the decision of a male fly to court, which can be modeled as a coin flip with odds set by motivational state. The decision is prompted by a tap of a female with the male's pheromone-receptor-containing foreleg. Each tap evokes competing excitation and inhibition onto P1 courtship command neurons. A motivating dopamine signal desensitizes P1 to the inhibition, increasing the fraction of taps that successfully initiate courtship. Once courtship has begun, the same dopamine tone potentiates recurrent excitation of P1, maintaining the courtship of highly motivated males for minutes and buffering against termination. Receptor diversity within P1 creates separate channels for tuning the propensities to initiate and sustain courtship toward appropriate targets. These findings establish a powerful invertebrate system for cue-triggered binary decisions and demonstrate that noise can be exploited by motivational systems to make behaviors scalable and flexible" |
| Keywords: | "Animals Animals, Genetically Modified Decision Making/*physiology Drosophila melanogaster Female Male Motivation/*physiology Perception/*physiology Sexual Behavior, Animal/*physiology Drosophila P1 chance courtship dopamine mating drive motivation tapping;" |
| Notes: | "MedlineZhang, Stephen X Miner, Lauren E Boutros, Christine L Rogulja, Dragana Crickmore, Michael A eng DP1 DA044358/DA/NIDA NIH HHS/ Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't 2018/07/10 Neuron. 2018 Jul 25; 99(2):376-388.e6. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2018.06.014. Epub 2018 Jul 5" |
