RRC ID 74694
Author Villar ME, Pavão-Delgado M, Amigo M, Jacob PF, Merabet N, Pinot A, Perry SA, Waddell S, Perisse E.
Title Differential coding of absolute and relative aversive value in the Drosophila brain.
Journal Curr Biol
Abstract Animals use prior experience to assign absolute (good or bad) and relative (better or worse) value to new experience. These learned values guide appropriate later decision making. Even though our understanding of how the valuation system computes absolute value is relatively advanced, the mechanistic underpinnings of relative valuation are unclear. Here, we uncover mechanisms of absolute and relative aversive valuation in Drosophila. Three types of punishment-sensitive dopaminergic neurons (DANs) respond differently to electric shock intensity. During learning, these punishment-sensitive DANs drive intensity-scaled plasticity at their respective mushroom body output neuron (MBON) connections to code absolute aversive value. In contrast, by comparing the absolute value of current and previous aversive experiences, the MBON-DAN network can code relative aversive value by using specific punishment-sensitive DANs and recruiting a specific subtype of reward-coding DANs. Behavioral and physiological experiments revealed that a specific subtype of reward-coding DAN assigns a "better than" value to the lesser of the two aversive experiences. This study therefore highlights how appetitive-aversive system interactions within the MB network can code and compare sequential aversive experiences to learn relative aversive value.
Volume 32(21)
Pages 4576-4592.e5
Published 2022-11-7
DOI 10.1016/j.cub.2022.08.058
PII S0960-9822(22)01380-X
PMID 36103878
MeSH Animals Brain / metabolism Dopaminergic Neurons / physiology Drosophila* / physiology Drosophila Proteins* / metabolism Drosophila melanogaster / metabolism Mushroom Bodies / physiology
IF 9.601
Resource
Drosophila DGRC#113659