• The expression of ionotropic receptor in drosophila larvae cool
    cells alters temperature sensitivity in hypertonic environment
    • Hua Bai
    • studying cool cells in larvae
    • larva prefer to stay at 24C
    • there are cool and warm cells in the DOG (?) that help the larva theromotax
    • A and B type cool cells
      • IR25a and IR93a are the cool receptors
      • IR21a is the tuning center for cooling cells
    • hyptertonic conditions - put larva in sucrose causes stress and loss of B cool cells
      • this is an issue because this is how most people collect larva for experiments
    • overexpression of IR93a strengthens expression of B cells
  • Essential elements of radical pair magnetosensitivity in Drosophila
    • Adam Bradlaugh
    • radical pair mechanism of magnetism…
    • expressing cryptochrome (CRY) and magnetic field causes cell to fire more
    • if you load the cell with FAD, cell is more potentiated and demonstrated that FAD is helping to make the radical pair in cells
    • with enough FAD, the cell can become sensitive to magnetic fields
    • FAD binds to CRY and this might be the evolutionary mechanism for magneto sensing
    • experiments were done in larva and they would change magnetic fields and larva would change orientation in response.
  • Hunger- and thirst-sensing neurons modulate a neuroendocrine network to coordinate sugar and water ingestion
    • Amanda J. Gonzalez-Segarra (Kristin Scott lab)
    • regulate thirst and hunger through ISNs in the SEZ
      • thirst = water
      • hunger = sugar
    • 104 post synaptic targets all in the SEZ and SMP
      • pulled out one called the Bilateral T shaped cell
    • ISNs inhibit the bilateral T shaped cell
      • they used ArcLight — not sure what this tool is
    • sugar and water ingestion is regulated by BiT and CCAP cells
  • Biophysical and molecular bases of activation and adaptation in Johnston’s organ neurons
    • Stephen Holtz (Rachel Wilson Lab)
    • 500 JONs that express 2 different TRP channels
    • recording JONs with ephys while manually moving the antenna with a piezo
    • JONs input are the stretching of the cilia in the antenna
    • neighboring JONs have similar inputs but different adaptation rates
    • there is input driven by tension of the cilia and this results in transduction
      • tension causes spiking in the JONs then the tension has to loosen again
    • but just like a rubber band that stretches and then returns to baseline there is an overshoot in the loosening and then they have to stretch a little more again which causes another little bit of spiking in the JONs
    • nan-inv and nompC required for diversity of responses in JONs and the retension behavior
  • Sensory correlates of electrotaxis in the Drosophila larva
    • David Tadres
    • asking if larva can electrotax and move to negative side of the chamber
      • basically used a glorified electrophoresis box and they could change the polarity of the box
    • when you flip the polarity of the box, the larva switches direction
    • Gr66a required for the electrotaxis
      • can detect changes in the direction of the electric field
      • depolarizes when facing the anode - like a “stop” neuron