Genetic pathways to circuit understanding in drosophila

Abstract

Genetic tools enable a diverse array of experimental approaches to dissect the relationships between brain function and behavior. Many genetic tools have been developed for use in the fruit fl y, Drosophila melanogaster, making it a powerful model system due to its rich behavioral repertoire on one hand and, on the other, the accessible size and scale of its highly stereotyped nervous system. The stereotypy of the fl y brain, in particular, makes it possible to interrogate, in essence, the same cell types-genetically, morphologically, physiologically, molecularly, and behaviorally-across individual fl ies. In this chapter, we describe how genetic tools can be used to target specifi c cell types in the fl y. We then illustrate how these tools can be used to measure or manipulate a cell type's activity, thereby shedding light on that cell type's function within an intact circuit. Finally, we describe how tools that directly manipulate genes in a cell-type-specifi c manner can be used to identify the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying each cell's function.