Abstract
To survive, all animals must find, inspect and ingest food. Behavioral coordination and control of feeding is therefore a challenge that animals must face. Here, we focus on how the gustatory system guides the precise execution of behavioral sequences that promote ingestion and suppresses competing behaviors. We summarize principles learnt from Drosophila, where underlying sensory neuronal mechanisms are illustrated in great detail. Moreover, we compare these principles with findings in other animals, where such coordination plays prominent roles. These examples suggest that the use of gustatory information for feeding coordination has an ancient origin and is prevalent throughout the animal kingdom.
Significance Statement Efficient feeding requires coordination. We synthesize findings across diverse species, highlighting the widespread and ancient role of taste in feeding coordination.
Footnotes
The authors declare no competing financial interests.
This work was supported by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (TA 552/5-1 to HT), MEXT/JSPS KAKENHI (26250001, 26120705, 17H01378, 17H05545, 16H01496, 15K14307 to HT), Naito Foundation (HT), and the Uehara Memorial Foundation (HT). VT is a JSPS International Research Fellow.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium provided that the original work is properly attributed.
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