title: A conditioned visual orientation requires the ellipsoid body in Drosophila.
abstract: Orientation, the spatial organization of animal behavior, is an essential faculty of animals. Bacteria and lower animals such as insects exhibit taxis, innate orientation behavior, directly toward or away from a directional cue. Organisms can also orient themselves at a specific angle relative to the cues. In this study, using Drosophila as a model system, we established a visual orientation conditioning paradigm based on a flight simulator in which a stationary flying fly could control the rotation of a visual object. By coupling aversive heat shocks to a fly's orientation toward one side of the visual object, we found that the fly could be conditioned to orientate toward the left or right side of the frontal visual object and retain this conditioned visual orientation. The lower and upper visual fields have different roles in conditioned visual orientation. Transfer experiments showed that conditioned visual orientation could generalize between visual targets of different sizes, compactness, or vertical positions, but not of contour orientation. Rut-Type I adenylyl cyclase and Dnc-phosphodiesterase were dispensable for visual orientation conditioning. Normal activity and scb signaling in R3/R4d neurons of the ellipsoid body were required for visual orientation conditioning. Our studies established a visual orientation conditioning paradigm and examined the behavioral properties and neural circuitry of visual orientation, an important component of the insect's spatial navigation.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100101, China University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
authors.forename: Chao
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100101, China University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
authors.forename: Yifei
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Du
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100101, China University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
authors.forename: Deliang
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Yuan
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100101, China.
authors.forename: Meixia
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100101, China.
authors.forename: Haiyun
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Gong
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100101, China.
authors.forename: Zhefeng
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Gong
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100101, China Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China liuli@sun5.ibp.ac.cn ezfgong@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D000262:Adenylyl Cyclases / Q000378:metabolism; D000818:Animals; D030801:Animals, Genetically Modified; D003213:Conditioning, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D000242:Cyclic AMP / Q000378:metabolism; D004330:Drosophila / Q000502:physiology*; D029721:Drosophila Proteins / Q000378:metabolism; D005426:Flight, Animal / Q000502:physiology*; D006358:Hot Temperature; D008297:Male; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology; D009949:Orientation / Q000502:physiology*; D010812:Physical Stimulation; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D012399:Rotation; D014794:Visual Fields; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D029721:Drosophila Proteins; D000242:Cyclic AMP; D000262:Adenylyl Cyclases; C479926:Rut protein, Drosophila