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Discovery of a new song mode in Drosophila reveals hidden structure in the sensory and neural drivers of behavior

Jan Clemens, Philip Coen, Frederic A. Roemschied, Talmo Pereira, David Mazumder, Diego Pacheco, Mala Murthy
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/221044
Jan Clemens
1Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
3present address: European Neuroscience Institute, Göttingen, Germany
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Philip Coen
1Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
4present address: University College London, London, UK
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Frederic A. Roemschied
1Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
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Talmo Pereira
1Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
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David Mazumder
1Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
2Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
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Diego Pacheco
1Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
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Mala Murthy
1Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
2Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
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Summary

Deciphering how brains generate behavior depends critically on an accurate description of behavior. If distinct behaviors are lumped together, separate modes of brain activity can be wrongly attributed to the same behavior. Alternatively, if a single behavior is split into two, the same neural activity can appear to produce different behaviors [1]. Here, we address this issue in the context of acoustic communication in Drosophila. During courtship, males utilize wing vibration to generate time-varying songs, and females evaluate songs to inform mating decisions [2-4]. Drosophila melanogaster song was thought for 50 years to consist of only two modes, sine and pulse, but using new unsupervised classification methods on large datasets of song recordings, we now establish the existence of at least three song modes: two distinct, evolutionary conserved pulse types, along with a single sine mode. We show how this seemingly subtle distinction profoundly affects our interpretation of the mechanisms underlying song production, perception and evolution. Specifically, we show that sensory feedback from the female influences the probability of producing each song mode and that male song mode choice affects female responses and contributes to modulating his song amplitude with distance [5]. At the neural level, we demonstrate how the activity of three separate neuron types within the fly’s song pathway differentially affect the probability of producing each song mode. Our results highlight the importance of carefully segmenting behavior to accurately map the underlying sensory, neural, and genetic mechanisms.

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The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted November 17, 2017.
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Discovery of a new song mode in Drosophila reveals hidden structure in the sensory and neural drivers of behavior
Jan Clemens, Philip Coen, Frederic A. Roemschied, Talmo Pereira, David Mazumder, Diego Pacheco, Mala Murthy
bioRxiv 221044; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/221044
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Discovery of a new song mode in Drosophila reveals hidden structure in the sensory and neural drivers of behavior
Jan Clemens, Philip Coen, Frederic A. Roemschied, Talmo Pereira, David Mazumder, Diego Pacheco, Mala Murthy
bioRxiv 221044; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/221044

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