Experience-dependent olfactory information processing for courtship control in Drosophila

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A male-specific pheromone component, cVA has an inhibitory effect on courtship motivation of the males. However, it was unclear how the male flies distinguish a tiny amount of exogenous cVA from his self-produced cVA and lead to an appropriate behavioral output.In this study, we found that prolonged cVA stimulation allowed the male to ignore constant male odor around for the keen and plastic behavioral responses. With real-time imaging, we found that cVA-responsible sensory neurons were desensitized by constant exposure to cVA in the environment. Pharmacological and genetical screening revealed that inhibitory inputs into the olfactory neurons in the primary olfactory center contributed to the plastic control of odor responses.