Even-Skipped(+) Interneurons Are Core Components of a Sensorimotor Circuit that Maintains Left-Right Symmetric Muscle Contraction Amplitude. Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • Bilaterally symmetric motor patterns--those in which left-right pairs of muscles contract synchronously and with equal amplitude (such as breathing, smiling, whisking, and locomotion)--are widespread throughout the animal kingdom. Yet, surprisingly little is known about the underlying neural circuits. We performed a thermogenetic screen to identify neurons required for bilaterally symmetric locomotion in Drosophila larvae and identified the evolutionarily conserved Even-skipped(+) interneurons (Eve/Evx). Activation or ablation of Eve(+) interneurons disrupted bilaterally symmetric muscle contraction amplitude, without affecting the timing of motor output. Eve(+) interneurons are not rhythmically active and thus function independently of the locomotor CPG. GCaMP6 calcium imaging of Eve(+) interneurons in freely moving larvae showed left-right asymmetric activation that correlated with larval behavior. TEM reconstruction of Eve(+) interneuron inputs and outputs showed that the Eve(+) interneurons are at the core of a sensorimotor circuit capable of detecting and modifying body wall muscle contraction.

published proceedings

  • Neuron

altmetric score

  • 66.468

author list (cited authors)

  • Heckscher, E. S., Zarin, A. A., Faumont, S., Clark, M. Q., Manning, L., Fushiki, A., ... Doe, C. Q.

citation count

  • 94

complete list of authors

  • Heckscher, Ellie S||Zarin, Aref Arzan||Faumont, Serge||Clark, Matthew Q||Manning, Laurina||Fushiki, Akira||Schneider-Mizell, Casey M||Fetter, Richard D||Truman, James W||Zwart, Maarten F||Landgraf, Matthias||Cardona, Albert||Lockery, Shawn R||Doe, Chris Q

publication date

  • October 2015

published in