A multilevel multimodal circuit enhances action selection in Drosophila | Nature

Combining neural manipulation in freely behaving animals, physiological studies and electron microscopy reconstruction in the Drosophila larva identifies a complex multilsensory circuit involved in the selection of larval escape modes that exhibits a multilevel multimodal convergence architecture.

Subjects Decision Abstract Natural events present multiple types of sensory cues, each detected by a specialized sensory modality. Combining information from several modalities is essential for the selection of appropriate actions. Key to understanding multimodal computations is determining the structural patterns of multimodal convergence and how these patterns contribute to behaviour. Modalities could converge early, late or at multiple levels in the sensory processing hierarchy. Here we show that combining mechanosensory and nociceptive cues synergistically enhances the selection of the fas

related reading

• Neural circuits underlying visually evoked escapes in larval zebrafishpmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
• Visuomotor decision-making through multifeature convergence in the larval zebrafish hindbrainnature.com
• A Normalization Model of Multisensory Integrationpmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
• Bridging the gap between theories of sensory cue integration and the physiology of multisensory neuronspmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
• "the digital sphinx: can a worm brain control a fly body?" TheSphinx_2026.pdffaculty.washington.edu
• The honeybee as a model for understanding the basis of cognitionbcp.fu-berlin.de
• Sensorimotor pathway controlling stopping behavior during chemotaxis in the Drosophila melanogaster larva | eLifeelifesciences.org
• The Unbearable Slowness of Beingarxiv.org
• A brain-wide map of neural activity during complex behaviournature.com
• Distributed plasticity drives visual habituation learning in larval zebrafishpmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
• Conductance-based dendrites perform Bayes-optimal cue integrationpmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
• Multimodal Neurons in Artificial Neural Networksdistill.pub