Distinct sensory representations of wind and near-field sound in the Drosophila brain

Common senses Mechanotransduction, the translation of mechanical forces into nerve impulses, is the basis of a number of senses including hearing, touch and awareness of gravity. Johnston's organ, a cluster of close to 500 sensory neurons in the Drosophila melanogaster antenna, is known to detect the vibrations of the antenna induced by the courtship song of a potential mate. Two laboratories have now identified additional senses mediating this system: Martin Göpfert and Kei Ito and colleagues show that it detects antennal deflections imposed by gravity, and Yorozu et al. find the same for deflections caused by wind. The behavioural responses to these stimuli are different, however, since different subsets of neurons are stimulated in each case. The way that these distinct mechanical senses are handled by separate neuronal pathways in a single organ is reminiscent of the vestibular division of the human inner ear that allows it to process sound and balance. These studies open the way to further genetic investigation in Drosophila as a broadly relevant model system for the detection of mechanosensory stimuli.