A neural circuit for flexible control of persistent behavioral states
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States
Abstract
To adapt to their environments, animals must generate behaviors that are closely aligned to a rapidly changing sensory world. However, behavioral states such as foraging or courtship typically persist over long time scales to ensure proper execution. It remains unclear how neural circuits generate persistent behavioral states while maintaining the flexibility to select among alternative states when the sensory context changes. Here, we elucidate the functional architecture of a neural circuit controlling the choice between roaming and dwelling states, which underlie exploration and exploitation during foraging in C. elegans. By imaging ensemble-level neural activity in freely-moving animals, we identify stereotyped changes in circuit activity corresponding to each behavioral state. Combining circuit-wide imaging with genetic analysis, we find that mutual inhibition between two antagonistic neuromodulatory systems underlies the persistence and mutual exclusivity of the neural activity patterns observed in each state. Through machine learning analysis and circuit perturbations, we identify a sensory processing neuron that can transmit information about food odors to both the roaming and dwelling circuits and bias the animal towards different states in different sensory contexts, giving rise to context-appropriate state transitions. Our findings reveal a potentially general circuit architecture that enables flexible, sensory-driven control of persistent behavioral states.
Data availability
Code has been made available on Github. Data has been made available on Dryad.
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A neural circuit for flexible control of persistent behavioral statesDryad Digital Repository, doi:10.5061/dryad.3bk3j9kh3.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (R01NS104892)
- Steven W Flavell
National Science Foundation (IOS 1845663)
- Steven W Flavell
National Science Foundation (DUE 1734870)
- Steven W Flavell
JPB Foundation (PIIF)
- Steven W Flavell
JPB Foundation (PNDRF)
- Steven W Flavell
Brain and Behavior Research Foundation (NARSAD Young Investigator Award)
- Steven W Flavell
McKnight Foundation (McKnight Scholars Award)
- Steven W Flavell
JPB Foundation (Picower Fellowship)
- Ni Ji
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (Sloan Research Fellowship)
- Steven W Flavell
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Copyright
© 2021, Ji et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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A neural circuit for flexible control of persistent behavioral states
eLife 10:e62889.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.62889
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