Central clock drives foraging rhythm throughmodulating food odor attraction in Drosophila by Mingmin Zhou & Meijun Zheng & Xiaohang Zhang & Xin Liu & Jing Guo & Xichu Cao & Aike Guo & Yan Li instant download

Central clock drives foraging rhythm throughmodulating food odor attraction in Drosophila by Mingmin Zhou & Meijun Zheng & Xiaohang Zhang & Xin Liu & Jing Guo & Xichu Cao & Aike Guo & Yan Li instant download

SUMMARYAnimals display rhythmic foraging behavior synchronized with the Earth’s 24-h cycle. However, the underlyingneural mechanism remains poorly understood. In this study, we found that one group of olfactory inhibitory projection neurons (iPNs) in Drosophila, called mlPN3, exhibits circadian responses to food odor and plays anessential role in promoting rhythmic foraging. We show that this circadian activity of mlPN3 neurons is drivenby a rhythmic inhibition from a group of dopaminergic neurons (DANs), PAM-β’2. Furthermore, PAM-β’2DANs are activated in the early morning by a group of circadian neurons, called morning cells, throughpigment-dispersing factor (PDF) neuropeptide. Suppressing either PAM-β’2 DANs or morning cells impairsmorning foraging, which is fully rescued by inhibiting mlPN3 neurons. Together, our findings show that the constant inhibition on foraging behavior of these iPNs is lifted by the circadian signal through dopaminergic suppression, providing critical insights into the function of the disinhibition circuit in circadian regulation.