The set of visual features the male perceives as he goes about his courtship ritual is very diverse, ranging from a moving object to looming. Remarkably, LC10a neurons are broadly tuned to the variety of visual features a courting male is exposed to. Since LC10a neurons mediate attraction and not all discrete objects similar to flies are safe to approach, the visual information provided by LC10a neurons is gated. In other words, LC10a-information is salient only when the male is in a courtship persistent state and actively courting a female. This change in internal state, from non-courting to courting, only occurs in the presence of a cocktail of sensory cues: fly and food odors set the scene, and the presence of a female contact pheromone and absence of a male pheromone elicit entry into the courtship persistent internal state. The neural circuits mediating entry into this internal state are known, but how the courtship internal state drives salience of LC10a-visual information, with apparent detriment of information coming from of other visual projection neurons, remains unknown. We will take advantage of the large repertoire of genetic tools in Drosophila melanogaster, ranging from genetic access to single neuron types to gene disruption, to address this knowledge gap.
Institute of Medical Psychology