RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Corollary Discharge Promotes a Sustained Motor State in a Neural Circuit for Navigation
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 861559
DO 10.1101/861559
A1 Ni Ji
A1 Vivek Venkatachalam
A1 Hillary Rodgers
A1 Wesley Hung
A1 Taizo Kawano
A1 Christopher M. Clark
A1 Maria Lim
A1 Mark J. Alkema
A1 Mei Zhen
A1 Aravinthan D.T. Samuel
YR 2019
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/12/03/861559.abstract
AB Animals exhibit behavioral and neural responses that persist on longer time scales than transient or fluctuating stimulus inputs. Here, we report that C. elegans uses corollary discharge to sustain motor responses during thermotactic navigation. By imaging circuit activity in behaving animals, we show that a principal postsynaptic partner of the AFD thermosensory neuron, the AIY interneuron, encodes both temperature and motor state information. By optogenetic and genetic manipulation of this circuit, we demonstrate that the motor state representation in AIY is a corollary discharge signal. RIM, an interneuron that is connected with premotor interneurons, is required for corollary discharge. Ablation of RIM eliminates the motor representation in AIY, allows thermosensory representations to reach downstream premotor interneurons, and reduces the animal’s ability to sustain forward movements during thermotaxis. We propose that corollary discharge underlies a positive feedback mechanism to generate persistent neural activity and sustained behavioral patterns in a sensorimotor transformation.