Direct neural pathways convey distinct visual information to Drosophila mushroom bodies
- Harvard University, United States
- Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, United States
- Max-Planck Institut für Neurobiologie, Germany
Abstract
Previously, we identified that visual and olfactory associative memories of Drosophila share the mushroom body (MB) circuits (Vogt et al. 2014). Despite well-characterized odor representations in the Drosophila MB, the MB circuit for visual information is totally unknown. Here we show that a small subset of MB Kenyon cells (KCs) selectively responds to visual but not olfactory stimulation. The dendrites of these atypical KCs form a ventral accessory calyx (vAC), distinct from the main calyx that receives olfactory input. We identified two types of visual projection neurons (VPNs) directly connecting the optic lobes and the vAC. Strikingly, these VPNs are differentially required for visual memories of color and brightness. The segregation of visual and olfactory domains in the MB allows independent processing of distinct sensory memories and may be a conserved form of sensory representations among insects.
Article and author information
Author details
Reviewing Editor
- Mani Ramaswami, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
Version history
- Received: December 24, 2015
- Accepted: April 14, 2016
- Accepted Manuscript published: April 15, 2016 (version 1)
- Version of Record published: May 27, 2016 (version 2)
Copyright
© 2016, Vogt et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Direct neural pathways convey distinct visual information to Drosophila mushroom bodies
eLife 5:e14009.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.14009
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