TY - JOUR T1 - Walking strides direct rapid and flexible recruitment of visual circuits for course control in <em>Drosophila</em> JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/2021.10.10.463817 SP - 2021.10.10.463817 AU - Terufumi Fujiwara AU - Margarida Brotas AU - M Eugenia Chiappe Y1 - 2021/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/10/10/2021.10.10.463817.abstract N2 - Flexible mapping between activity in sensory systems and movement parameters is a hallmark of successful motor control. This flexibility depends on continuous comparison of short-term postural dynamics and the longer-term goals of an animal, thereby necessitating neural mechanisms that can operate across multiple timescales. To understand how such body-brain interactions emerge to control movement across timescales, we performed whole-cell patch recordings from visual neurons involved in course control in Drosophila. We demonstrate that the activity of leg mechanosensory cells, propagating via specific ascending neurons, is critical to provide a clock signal to the visual circuit for stride-by-stride steering adjustments and, at longer timescales, information on speed-associated motor context to flexibly recruit visual circuits for course control. Thus, our data reveal a stride-based mechanism for the control of high-performance walking operating at multiple timescales. We propose that this mechanism functions as a general basis for adaptive control of locomotion.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest. ER -