Molecular and neuronal mechanisms governing sexually dimorphic prioritization of innate behaviors

Abstract

Males and females display dimorphic innate behaviors and further prioritize them differently. How the sexually dimorphic behavioral prioritization is mediated is poorly understood. In Drosophila, around 60 pairs of pC1 neurons in males and 6 pairs in females control sexually dimorphic behaviors. We show that an increase of pC1 activity determines the sequential execution of behaviors such as sex, aggression, sleep, and feeding in a sex-specific way. We identify distinct subsets of pC1 neurons in both males and females that regulate different behaviors. We further discover diuretic hormone 44 (DH44) and acetylcholine (ACh) as co-transmitters in pC1 neurons. ACh promotes the execution of each behavior in both sexes, whereas DH44 functions in a sex-specific and activity-dependent manner to establish the sexually dimorphic behavioral outputs. These findings provide a framework for understanding the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying sexually dimorphic prioritization of innate behaviors.