Can fruit fly larvae sense electrical fields?

Researchers have discovered that moreover sharks, bees and platypus, even fruit fly larvae can sense electrical fields and navigate towards the unfavourable electrical potential utilizing a small set of sensory neurons of their head. Researchers on the College of California at Santa Barbara immersed a fruit fly larva in an electrical area and so they discovered the larva reoriented itself and started shifting towards the unfavourable electrode. They discovered the neurons essential to electroreception have been positioned on both aspect of the larva’s head. Exposing the pinnacle phase to an electrical area underneath the microscope confirmed their preliminary discovering. They discovered that solely a single neuron on this cluster responded to the electrical area. The neuron was inhibited when the electrode was in entrance of the pinnacle, and activated when the electrode was behind, triggering the larva to reorient itself. By systematically eliminating confounding elements, the researchers confirmed that the larvae have been responding to the electrical area itself. And it was particularly the neurons of their head that detected the electrical area, its power and orientation.