2018 Fiscal Year Annual Research Report
Elucidation of the neuronal mechanism of experience-dependent plasticity in the acoustic behavior
| Project/Area Number |
18J15228
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| Research Institution | Nagoya University |
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Principal Investigator |
LI XIAODONG 名古屋大学, 理学研究科, 特別研究員(DC2)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2018-04-25 – 2020-03-31
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| Keywords | plasticity / auditory experience / mating preference |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
Successful mating between animals relies on accurate recognition and discrimination of individuals. Whether insects like fruit flies can learn to discriminate acoustic features is less studied. In my previous study (Li et al., 2018a & b), I found that preference of flies for their species-specific courtship song and mate selection are not innately hard-wired but are shaped by auditory experience. The experience of hearing conspecific song made both male and female flies more selective in distinguishing courtship songs. I further identified the mechanism, which involves GABAergic inhibition on a small group of central neurons called pC1 neurons via RDL receptors. These results reveals auditory plasticity in fruit flies for the first time.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
1: Research has progressed more than it was originally planned.
Reason
The research project is challenging, but I had made major progress when I got support from JSPS. So I was able to predict how the next research was performed and expected what could be done well. After numerous discussion with my mentor and other researchers, I was able to make further progress step by step. For the first time in the world, my study reported that even as simple as fruit flies, their auditory preference is plastic in exposure to acoustic world. And I revealed its underlying neural mechanism preliminarily. With these results, in the past year, I published two papers, one on eLife and one on Bio-protocol.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
Following the published work, I find that fruit flies also exhibit innate auditory preference soon after eclosion, and the maintenance of this innate auditory preference requires auditory experience. Even if the innate auditory preference is lost, it could be re-acquired after exposure to conspecific song in a certain period, Now I'm writing another paper about the innate auditory preference in fruit flies. Next I plan to investigate the underlying neural mechanism by searching for the critical molecules and examining the physiological response properties of central neurons.
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