Connecting Neural Codes with Behavior in the Auditory System of Drosophila. Author Jan Clemens, Cyrille Girardin, Pip Coen, Xiao-Juan Guan, Barry Dickson, Mala Murthy Publication Year 2015 Type Journal Article Abstract Brains are optimized for processing ethologically relevant sensory signals. However, few studies have characterized the neural coding mechanisms that underlie the transformation from natural sensory information to behavior. Here, we focus on acoustic communication in Drosophila melanogaster and use computational modeling to link natural courtship song, neuronal codes, and female behavioral responses to song. We show that melanogaster females are sensitive to long timescale song structure (on the order of tens of seconds). From intracellular recordings, we generate models that recapitulate neural responses to acoustic stimuli. We link these neural codes with female behavior by generating model neural responses to natural courtship song. Using a simple decoder, we predict female behavioral responses to the same song stimuli with high accuracy. Our modeling approach reveals how long timescale song features are represented by the Drosophila brain and how neural representations can be decoded to generate behavioral selectivity for acoustic communication signals. Keywords Animals, Drosophila, Acoustic Stimulation, Animals, Genetically Modified, Auditory Pathways, Auditory Perception, Female, Male, Sexual Behavior, Animal, Vocalization, Animal Journal Neuron Volume 87 Issue 6 Pages 1332-1343 Date Published 2015 Sep 23 ISSN Number 1097-4199 DOI 10.1016/j.neuron.2015.08.014 Alternate Journal Neuron PMCID PMC4629847 PMID 26365767 PubMedPubMed CentralGoogle ScholarBibTeXEndNote X3 XML