Figure 3.

cVA on a freely moving male conveys positional information that can be used for lateralized behavior

(A) Biases in turn initiation after unilateral antennectomy. Pairs of flies freely interact in darkness. When one (receiver) fly initiated a turn, we calculated the relative heading (see cartoon) toward the other (stimulus) fly, if the turn was within cVA detection range. For both female and male receiver flies, the right antenna was cut (“ablation,” right), or the right non-olfactory arista was cut (“control,” left). Polar histograms are plotted with the vector median (red line): females: control = 13.7°, ablation = 38.8° (n = 32 per condition); male: control = 2.7°, ablation = 23.9° (n = 48 per condition). The median direction of the groups significantly differs in both sexes.

(B) Or67d ORN responses to a freely moving male. Top: combined imaging holder and behavior arena; d: distance between the female’s antennae and the male’s abdomen. Left: summed ORN GCaMP6f responses in the right and left DA1 glomerulus at male positions relative to the female’s antennae (x). For visualization, the top and bottom 1% ΔF/F values were colored as the respective percentile. Middle: same as on the left but showing the difference of the right and left responses. For visualization, the top and bottom 5% ΔF/F values were colored as the respective percentile. Right: the distribution of right, left response differences when the male was to the left (−90° to −15°) or to the right (15°–90°), the fly faces toward the top (0°). n = 6, 5-min-long recordings.

(C) Male proximity drives ORN responses. Summed ORN GCaMP6f responses in the right and left DA1 glomerulus and the male’s distance inverted (as described in B) over time. 5-min-long example trace from one fly.

(D) Cross-correlogram of summed right, left ORN (brown), and DA1 lPN GCaMP6f (orange) responses and male distance, based on data from 6 flies for both cell types. Traces shown in Figures S3B and S3C. Positive lag corresponds to the male distance leading and neural responses following. Lag(ORN) = 556 ms, lag(lPN) = 278 ms.

(E) Same as (C), DA1 lPN responses. n = 6, 5-min-long recordings.

(F) Females move toward a male presented in the dark. Left: schematic of fly-on-a-ball setup and male presentation. Right: lateral displacement traces and mean displacement over 0.5 s of individual trials following right (blue) and left (red) male presentations, timing aligned to the start of movement. Three conditions shown from left to right: a male fly presented with ambient light on, a dummy fly presented in the dark, and a male fly presented in the dark. n(flies): 27, 28, and 19; n(trials): 90, 137, and 82; left to right order.

See also Figure S3.