Taste quality and hunger interactions in a feeding sensorimotor circuit
- University of California, Berkeley, United States
- University of Queensland, Australia
Abstract
Taste detection and hunger state dynamically regulate the decision to initiate feeding. To study how context-appropriate feeding decisions are generated, we combined synaptic resolution circuit reconstruction with targeted genetic access to specific neurons to elucidate a gustatory sensorimotor circuit for feeding initiation in adult Drosophila melanogaster. This circuit connects gustatory sensory neurons to proboscis motor neurons through three intermediate layers. Most neurons in this pathway are necessary and sufficient for proboscis extension, a feeding initiation behavior, and respond selectively to sugar taste detection. Pathway activity is amplified by hunger signals that act at select second-order neurons to promote feeding initiation in food-deprived animals. In contrast, the feeding initiation circuit is inhibited by a bitter taste pathway that impinges on premotor neurons, illuminating a local motif that weighs sugar and bitter taste detection to adjust behavioral outcome. Together, these studies reveal central mechanisms for the integration of external taste detection and internal nutritive state to flexibly execute a critical feeding decision.
Data availability
All data is included in the manuscript or available at https://catmaid-fafb.virtualflybrain.org.
Article and author information
Author details
Gabriella R Sterne
Funding
National Institutes of Health (R01DC013280)
- Kristin Scott
National Institutes of Health (F32DK117671)
- Gabriella R Sterne
National Institutes of Health (F32DC018225)
- Philip K Shiu
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Copyright
© 2022, Shiu et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Taste quality and hunger interactions in a feeding sensorimotor circuit
eLife 11:e79887.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.79887
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