Journal
CURRENT BIOLOGY
Volume 31, Issue 6, Pages 1175-+Publisher
CELL PRESS
DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2020.12.047
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- Wellcome Trust [203261/Z/16/Z, 106189/Z/14/Z]
- BBSRC [BB/T001348/1]
- Wellcome Trust [106189/Z/14/Z] Funding Source: Wellcome Trust
- BBSRC [BB/T001348/1, BB/N000803/1] Funding Source: UKRI
Ask authors/readers for more resources
This study reveals a novel sexual dimorphism in Drosophila melanogaster, where sexual differentiation of only a small number of higher order neurons in the brain leads to changes in connectivity related to the primary reproductive needs of both sexes, allowing for completely different behavioral repertoires to be deployed in males and females.
Although males and females largely share the same genome and nervous system, they differ profoundly in reproductive investments and require distinct behavioral, morphological, and physiological adaptations. How can the nervous system, while bound by both developmental and biophysical constraints, produce these sex differences in behavior? Here, we uncover a novel dimorphism in Drosophila melanogaster that allows deployment of completely different behavioral repertoires in males and females with minimum changes to circuit architecture. Sexual differentiation of only a small number of higher order neurons in the brain leads to a change in connectivity related to the primary reproductive needs of both sexes-courtship pursuit in males and communal oviposition in females. This study explains how an apparently similar brain generates distinct behavioral repertoires in the two sexes and presents a fundamental principle of neural circuit organization that may be extended to other species.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available