Complex representation of taste quality by second-order gustatory neurons in Drosophila

Sweet and bitter compounds excite different sensory cells and drive opposing behaviors. However, it remains unclear how sweet and bitter tastes are represented by the neural circuits linking sensation to behavior. To investigate this question in Drosophila, we devised trans-Tango(activity), a strate...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Current biology 2022-09, Vol.32 (17), p.3758-3772.e4
Main Authors: Snell, Nathaniel J, Fisher, John D, Hartmann, Griffin G, Zolyomi, Bence, Talay, Mustafa, Barnea, Gilad
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Drosophila - physiology
Drosophila Proteins - genetics
Neurons - physiology
Taste - physiology
Taste Perception - physiology
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Summary:Sweet and bitter compounds excite different sensory cells and drive opposing behaviors. However, it remains unclear how sweet and bitter tastes are represented by the neural circuits linking sensation to behavior. To investigate this question in Drosophila, we devised trans-Tango(activity), a strategy for calcium imaging of second-order gustatory projection neurons based on trans-Tango, a genetic transsynaptic tracing technique. We found spatial overlap between the projection neuron populations activated by sweet and bitter tastants. The spatial representation of bitter tastants in the projection neurons was consistent, while that of sweet tastants was heterogeneous. Furthermore, we discovered that bitter tastants evoke responses in the gustatory receptor neurons and projection neurons upon both stimulus onset and offset and that bitter offset and sweet onset excite overlapping second-order projections. These findings demonstrate an unexpected complexity in the representation of sweet and bitter tastants by second-order neurons of the gustatory circuit.
ISSN:0960-9822
1879-0445
DOI:10.1016/j.cub.2022.07.048