2023 Fiscal Year Annual Research Report
Investigating the role of individual dopaminergic reward neurons for locomotion
| Project/Area Number |
22K20673
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| Research Institution | Hokkaido University |
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Principal Investigator |
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| Project Period (FY) |
2022-08-31 – 2024-03-31
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| Keywords | Locomotion / Dopamine / Drosophila |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
Across the animal kingdom, dopamine serves diverse, highly conserved roles in the nervous system. Two of the most important functions are to signal rewards during associative learning, and to modulate locomotion. In this project, I asked whether the same individual dopamine neurons can contribute to both learning and locomotion, using the larva of the fruit fly. I accomplished 3 major achievements:
1. The publication of our new video analysis software along with an high-impact article in Open Biology (AY2022). This publication includes the original experiments on which this project is based on and new experiments that were not finished at the time of the proposal. The software is the methodic basis of all following experiments.
2. I found that the dopamine neurons signalling reward or punishment during learning indeed have severe impact on locomotion, in opposite directions: activating reward-neurons reduced bending and increased speed, and activating punishment-neurons increased bending and reduced speed. I also found which individual dopamine neurons cause these locomotion effects.
3. Employing a pharmacological approach, I found that the locomotion effects of activating dopamine neurons is indeed dependent on dopamine synthesis. This effect could be partially confirmed by another method, called RNA interference.
Together, these results show that in fly larvae the very same dopaminergic pathways are used for learning and locomotion. The results are planned to be published this year and hopefully help understanding the two major functions of dopamine in other brains too.
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