Presentation Type
Poster
Faculty Mentor’s Full Name
Sarah Certel
Faculty Mentor’s Department
Division of Biological Sciences
Abstract / Artist's Statement
Animals must prioritize their needs to decide how to act in a way that meets their physiological needs and matches their environmental context. Since behaviors are often carried out at the expense of others, it is important to understand how these binary options are evaluated and prioritized in an animal’s nervous system. We aim to understand how internal states such as hunger are signaled to the brain. Further, we ask, how does an organism integrate multiple signals and ultimately decide how to respond? When a pair of Drosophila melanogaster males are placed in a small chamber with a high-quality food source, they have three options: feed, explore, or fight. When a male is starved, we hypothesize that a high-need hunger signal is sent from the gut to the brain. This signal should bump feeding to the top of the priority list, resulting in the fly eating before engaging in other behaviors. Our data indicates that starved flies feed earlier than fed flies, suggesting that they respond to internal signals telling them to feed rather than explore. Previous work in the Certel lab has determined that neurons that express the octopamine (OA) adrenergic receptor OAα2R innervate the gut. Preliminary data suggests OAα2R expressed in enteroendocrine (EE) cells is necessary for aggression. We hypothesize that OA binding to OAα2R inhibits the release of neuropeptides in EE cells. This, in turn, inhibits feeding behavior and promotes aggression in flies. Here, we predict that a reduction in EE cell OAα2R expression will result in fed flies feeding sooner. Using OAα2R Knockdown and UAS-Gal4 control flies, we starved or let male flies feed ad libitum for 24 hours. Subsequently, the flies were aspirated into the chamber with a nutritive food resource to be both fed on and fought over. To score flies’ behavior, lunges toward their counterparts were recorded as a metric of aggression. To test our hypotheses, we quantified flies’ latency to lunge and latency to feed (the time between aspiration into the chamber and the first act of aggression or feeding) under fed or starved internal states. Our preliminary analysis suggests that OAα2R does not inhibit feeding. Based on these results we will test a revised hypothesis: OAα2R inhibits the release of neuropeptides, thus promoting the transition from feeding to fighting. A greater understanding of decision prioritization will help map the internal codes of social behavior and dynamics as well as reveal therapeutic targets that could modulate aggression.
Category
Life Sciences
Behavior Prioritization In Drosophila
UC South Ballroom
Animals must prioritize their needs to decide how to act in a way that meets their physiological needs and matches their environmental context. Since behaviors are often carried out at the expense of others, it is important to understand how these binary options are evaluated and prioritized in an animal’s nervous system. We aim to understand how internal states such as hunger are signaled to the brain. Further, we ask, how does an organism integrate multiple signals and ultimately decide how to respond? When a pair of Drosophila melanogaster males are placed in a small chamber with a high-quality food source, they have three options: feed, explore, or fight. When a male is starved, we hypothesize that a high-need hunger signal is sent from the gut to the brain. This signal should bump feeding to the top of the priority list, resulting in the fly eating before engaging in other behaviors. Our data indicates that starved flies feed earlier than fed flies, suggesting that they respond to internal signals telling them to feed rather than explore. Previous work in the Certel lab has determined that neurons that express the octopamine (OA) adrenergic receptor OAα2R innervate the gut. Preliminary data suggests OAα2R expressed in enteroendocrine (EE) cells is necessary for aggression. We hypothesize that OA binding to OAα2R inhibits the release of neuropeptides in EE cells. This, in turn, inhibits feeding behavior and promotes aggression in flies. Here, we predict that a reduction in EE cell OAα2R expression will result in fed flies feeding sooner. Using OAα2R Knockdown and UAS-Gal4 control flies, we starved or let male flies feed ad libitum for 24 hours. Subsequently, the flies were aspirated into the chamber with a nutritive food resource to be both fed on and fought over. To score flies’ behavior, lunges toward their counterparts were recorded as a metric of aggression. To test our hypotheses, we quantified flies’ latency to lunge and latency to feed (the time between aspiration into the chamber and the first act of aggression or feeding) under fed or starved internal states. Our preliminary analysis suggests that OAα2R does not inhibit feeding. Based on these results we will test a revised hypothesis: OAα2R inhibits the release of neuropeptides, thus promoting the transition from feeding to fighting. A greater understanding of decision prioritization will help map the internal codes of social behavior and dynamics as well as reveal therapeutic targets that could modulate aggression.