TY - JOUR T1 - Corollary Discharge Promotes a Sustained Motor State in a Neural Circuit for Navigation JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/861559 SP - 861559 AU - Ni Ji AU - Vivek Venkatachalam AU - Hillary Rodgers AU - Wesley Hung AU - Taizo Kawano AU - Christopher M. Clark AU - Maria Lim AU - Mark J. Alkema AU - Mei Zhen AU - Aravinthan D.T. Samuel Y1 - 2021/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/04/01/861559.abstract N2 - 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 feedback from the motor circuit to a sensory processing interneuron to sustain its motor state 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 this 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 feedback from the motor circuit to the sensory processing circuit underlies a positive feedback mechanism to generate persistent neural activity and sustained behavioral patterns in a sensorimotor transformation.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest. ER -