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In most animals, the brain makes behavioral decisions that are transmitted by descending neurons to the nerve cord circuitry that produces behaviors. In insects, only a few descending neurons have been associated with specific behaviors. To explore how descending neurons control an insect's movements, we developed a novel method to systematically assay the behavioral effects of activating individual neurons on freely behaving terrestrial D. melanogaster . We calculated a two-dimensional representation of the entire behavior space explored by these flies, and we associated descending neurons with specific behaviors by identifying regions of this space that were visited with increased frequency during optogenetic activation. Applying this approach across a large collection of descending neurons, we found that (1) activation of most of the descending neurons drove stereotyped behaviors, (2) in many cases multiple descending neurons activated similar behaviors, and (3) optogenetically activated behaviors were often dependent on the behavioral state prior to activation., Competing Interests: JC, SN, JQ, WK, GC, JS, DS, GB No competing interests declared, (© 2018, Cande et al.)

The activity of four types of sound-sensitive descending brain neurons in the cricket Gryllus bimaculatus was recorded intracellularly while animals were standing or walking on an open-loop trackball system. In a neuron with a contralaterally descending axon, the male calling song elicited responses that copied the pulse pattern of the song during standing and walking. The accuracy of pulse copying increased during walking. Neurons with ipsilaterally descending axons responded weakly to sound only during standing. The responses were mainly to the first pulse of each chirp, whereas the complete pulse pattern of a chirp was not copied. During walking the auditory responses were suppressed in these neurons. The spiking activity of all four neuron types was significantly correlated to forward walking velocity, indicating their relevance for walking. Additionally, injection of depolarizing current elicited walking and/or steering in three of four neuron types described. In none of the neurons was the spiking activity both sufficient and necessary to elicit and maintain walking behaviour. Some neurons showed arborisations in the lateral accessory lobes, pointing to the relevance of this brain region for cricket audition and descending motor control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]