Acoustic Communication
Key among the signals used for communication is sound – consider dogs barking, cats meowing, birds singing, or crickets chirping. Fruit flies (genus Drosophila) also produce and process patterned sounds during social interactions. Flies are a popular model system for neuroscience because their nervous system is simple, and the field has concertedly generated a wealth of genetic and neural circuit tools to interrogate it. Our work has demonstrated that flies are also an ideal model for studies of communication. By analyzing song and fly movements over large datasets, we found that rather than being a fixed action sequence, fly songs are highly variable. However, this variability can be explained by taking into account the dynamic sensory experience of the male in addition to his own fluctuating internal states. We also showed that these songs drive changes in female locomotion, and ultimately the feedback the male receives. Our work has revealed an unanticipated level of complexity and control in insect communication, and we are now extending this work to mice to compare circuit mechanisms underlying conserved computations.