Studying neural circuits of decision-making in Drosophila larva

Abstract

To study neural circuits underlying decisions, the model organism used for that purpose has to be simple enough to be able to dissect the circuitry neuron by neuron across the nervous system and in the same time complex enough to be able to perform different types of decisions. Here, I lay out the case: (1) that Drosophila larva is an advantageous model system that balances well these two requirements and (2) the insights gained from this model, assuming that circuit principles may be shared across species, can be used to advance our knowledge of neural circuit implementation of decision-making in general, including in more complex brains.

Keywords:

• Drosophila larva
• neural circuits
• decision-making

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Daniel Vasiliauskas for comments on this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 798050 and from the ANR (agence nationale de la recherche): ANR-17-CE37-0019.