Male sexual desire typically declines with ageing. However, our understanding of the neurobiological basis for this phenomenon is limited by our knowledge of the brain circuitry and neuronal pathways controlling male sexual desire. A number of studies across species suggest that dopamine (DA) affects sexual desire. Here we use genetic tools and behavioural assays to identify a novel subset of DA neurons that regulate age-associated male courtship activity in Drosophila. We find that increasing DA levels in a subset of cells in the PPL2ab neuronal cluster is necessary and sufficient for increased sustained courtship in both young and aged male flies. Our results indicate that preventing the age-related decline in DA levels in PPL2ab neurons alleviates diminished courtship behaviours in male Drosophila. These results may provide the foundation for deciphering the circuitry involved in sexual motivation in the male Drosophila brain.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 35. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 06 August 2015.
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#1,284,406
of 28,833,811 outputs
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#20,368
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#13,932
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Outputs of similar age from Nature Communications
#180
of 794 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 28,833,811 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 95th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 69,568 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 52.4. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 70% of its peers.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 794 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 77% of its contemporaries.
