Frederic Römschied | “Modulation of neural function following experience in alternate social realities”
Young PI talk \ Manfred Eigen lecture theatre
Learning from social feedback is fundamental for flexible behavior across species, and deficits in such flexibility can impair social well-being. To investigate the neural basis of social flexibility, we studied male Drosophila melanogaster, a genetically accessible model of social behavior. Building on work showing that past social experience influences male courtship behavior, we developed a novel framework to test how distinct forms of social feedback from female flies shape the function of courtship-related neurons in males. We created alternate social realities by pairing males with females that either displayed atypical backward-walking responses to an approaching male (using closed-loop optogenetic activation of neurons driving female backward walking, Bidaye et al., Science 2014), or behaved normally. Following these experiences, we characterized the function of distinct sets of male neurons, spanning visual sensory, brain, and premotor levels, using a novel approach that has not yet been used in adult flies (but nematodes and fly larvae, Hernandez-Nunez et al., eLife 2015; Gepner et al. eLife 2015): optogenetic neural stimulation with stochastic light patterns (covering a broad range of neural dynamics) paired with automated behavioral identification to uncover the neurons’ roles across the full behavioral repertoire. Males exposed to backward-walking females showed altered neural-behavior mappings in key neurons involved in courtship, requiring different stimulation patterns to elicit comparable behaviors relative to controls – indicating social modulation of neural function. The level of modulation depended both on neuron type and target behavior. This integrative approach—combining real‑time behavioral tracking, closed‑loop neural manipulation, stochastic
optogenetic profiling, and behavioral classification—demonstrates how past social experience modulates a behavioral readout of neural dynamics to guide future interactions. By modeling how individuals update internal representations in response to social feedback, this work introduces a novel system for studying the neural basis of adaptive social behavior.