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Tracking nutrient decisions in Drosophila melanogaster
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Orientador(es)
Resumo(s)
Animals integrate external sensory information and current metabolic needs to adapt their behavior in order to survive. Accordingly, many organisms can detect an internal nutritional imbalance and adjust their nutritional choices to restore homeostasis. Detailed quantitative analyses of nutrient-choice behaviors are needed to deepen our understanding of how neural circuits integrate internal state information and drive compensatory behavior when facing metabolic challenges. During this project, we developed an automated video tracking setup to characterize how metabolic and reproductive states interact to shape exploitation and exploration decisions taken by the adult fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, to achieve nutritional homeostasis. We find that these two states have specific effects on the decisions to stop on and leave proteinaceous food patches. Furthermore, the internal nutrient state defines the exploration-exploitation trade-off: nutrient deprived flies focus on specific patches while satiated flies explore more globally. We provide few examples of how our paradigm could be used in the dissection of the genetic and neuronal pathways underlying nutrient decisions: First, we show that olfaction is not required for the compensatory high yeast feeding after amino acid deprivation, but that it mediates the efficient recognition of yeast as an appropriate food source in mated females. Second, we show that octopamine is required to mediate homeostatic postmating responses without affecting internal nutrient sensing. Third, we show how gustation is required to sustain interest for protein-rich resources upon amino acid deprivation. Our results provide a quantitative description of how the fly changes behavioral decisions to achieve homeostatic nutrient balancing and provide a framework for future detailed mechanistic dissection of such decisions.
Descrição
Palavras-chave
Computational analysis of behavior Internal states Nutrition Neurogenetics Homeostasis