RUI: State-dependent modulation of visuomotor reflexes across Drosophila species

从我们早上醒来的那一刻起，直到我们入睡的那一刻，我们不断受到感官刺激的轰炸。闹钟的嗡嗡声，电子邮件提醒的叮咚声，然而不知何故，我们识别了显著的感官刺激，忽略了其他的，以便在每个时刻产生适当的行为反应。我们认为哪些刺激是突出的可能取决于外部和内部环境等其他因素。这个项目的总体目标是探索大脑如何整合我们的内部和外部环境来修改视觉线索的感知，以促进在不同栖息地的生存。具体来说，本研究将研究生活在不同生态环境中的果蝇物种在引导视觉诱发行为方面的解剖和神经回路变化。这项拟议中的工作将支持韦尔斯利学院（Wellesley College）的本科生培训。韦尔斯利学院是一所女子学院。学生将积极参与实验设计，数据收集，分析和手稿准备的各个方面。韦尔斯利的学生群体在地理、文化和经济上都是多样化的，我们将尽一切努力让代表性不足的群体成员参与进来。本提案中概述的实验将由本科研究生在实验室中进行，并整合到高级选修课程中。这项工作的结果将在科学会议上以及与高中生和中小学教师分享。生物如何在不断变化的环境条件下生存？它们必须能够通过应用灵活性产生适应性行为，因为它们：(1)从背景中区分突出的感觉信号，(2)为这些刺激分配价值-吸引或厌恶-以及(3)将这些刺激与当前的环境背景和内部生理状态相结合。虽然在理解歧视和分配价值的过程方面取得了进展，但关于在何处以及如何整合内部状态的短期（小时时间尺度）变化来驱动上下文适当的行为，仍有很多未知。生物间的工作已经研究了内部状态如何调节对气味、信息素、温度和水的感知，然而，很少有工作研究内部状态如何不同地调节来自不同视觉生态环境（森林和沙漠）的生物对视觉刺激的感知，这些环境可能施加了非常不同的进化压力。本研究的目的是研究生活在不同生态环境中的果蝇的解剖学和神经回路变化对视觉诱发行为的指导作用。这些实验将阐明生态栖息地对状态依赖行为和神经调节回路产生的影响，从而了解不同进化压力如何改变行为反应和所涉及的神经回路。该项目将利用多方面的方法：(1)基因操作来控制特定的神经通路，(2)视觉和嗅觉“虚拟现实”飞行模拟器来测量驱动适应行为的感觉运动整合，以及(3)体内双光子钙成像作为神经活动的指标。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

From the moment we wake up in the morning until the moment we fall asleep we are constantly barraged with sensory stimuli. The buzzing of the alarm, the dinging of email alerts, yet somehow, we identify the salient sensory stimuli and ignore the rest in order to generate an appropriate behavioral response each moment. Which stimuli we identify to be salient could depend on additional factors such as our external and internal environments. The overall goal of this project is to explore how the brain integrates our internal and external environment to modify the perception of visual cues to promote survival in different habitats. Specifically, this proposal will examine the contributions of anatomical and neural circuit changes in guiding visually evoked behaviors in Drosophila species living in distinct ecological habitats. The proposed work will support the training of undergraduates at Wellesley College, an all-women’s institution. Students will be actively involved in all aspects of experimental design, data collection, analysis, and manuscript preparation. Wellesley’s student body is geographically, culturally, and economically diverse and all efforts will be made to involve members of underrepresented groups. Experiments outlined in this proposal will be carried out by undergraduate research students both in the lab as well as integrated into an upper-level elective course. Findings from this work will be shared at scientific meetings as well as with high school students and elementary and secondary school teachers. How can an organism survive in ever-changing environmental conditions? They must be able to generate adaptive behavior by applying flexibility as they: (1) discriminate salient sensory signals from background, (2) assign value – attractive or aversive – to such stimuli and (3) integrate these stimuli with the current environmental context and internal physiological state. While inroads have been made in understanding the processes of discrimination and assigning value, much remains unknown about where and how short-term (hours timescale) changes in internal state are integrated to drive contextually appropriate behavior. Work across organisms has investigated how internal state modulates perception of odor, pheromone, temperature, and water, however, little work has examined how internal state differentially modulates the perception of visual stimuli of organisms from environments with distinct visual ecologies (forest and desert) that may have imposed very different evolutionary pressures. The goal of this proposal is to examine the contributions of anatomical and neural circuit changes in guiding visually evoked behaviors in Drosophila species living in distinct ecological habitats. These experiments will elucidate the impact of ecological habitats on the generation of state-dependent behavior and neuromodulatory circuits in order to understand how behavioral responses and the neural circuits involved may have been altered by differential evolutionary pressures. The project will utilize a multifaceted approach: (1) genetic manipulation to allow control over specific neural pathways, (2) visual and olfactory ‘virtual-reality’ flight simulators to measure sensory motor integration that drives adaptive behavior, and (3) in-vivo two photon calcium imaging as an indicator of neural activity.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.