Berg et al., Cell 189:5504–5526, 2026 · Figures 4H and 4I
Genetic access to the love-spot circuit
The male-specific frontal visual pathway that suppresses turning during courtship, redrawn from the connectome, with an independently found driver line for every node shown against the EM neurons it is meant to label.
Figure 4H
The circuit, in the paper's layout
Columns and membership are the paper's. Edges and synapse counts are mine, queried fresh from the male CNS connectome; only connections of 150 synapses or more are drawn, or the diagram becomes a hairball. Node colour is the result of this whole exercise: whether any single driver line reaches that type. Click a node to see it.
Figure 4I, checked independently
The functional subcircuit is LoVP92 → VES200m → DNg13. The paper says LoVP92 drives VES200m bilaterally and VES200m inhibits DNg13 ipsilaterally. Both hold. LoVP92 to VES200m splits across the midline almost evenly (L→L 196, L→R 187, R→L 110, R→R 194). VES200m to DNg13 is strictly one sided: 167 and 194 within a hemisphere against 1 and 0 across it. LoVP92 also contacts DNg13 directly, but at 54 synapses against 362 through VES200m, the inhibitory route dominates.
Coregistered light and EM
Pick a node
Orange is every cell of the EM type at once. Blue is the light segment that matched. Both live on the same JRC2018_Unisex_20x_HR canvas, so they are aligned with no warping. Full expression shows what else the line labels; there, hue is Z depth, not identity.
Verdict
What the circuit lets you manipulate
A line counts as specific only when its type is the single strongest match across the whole EM volume. Filling every cell of a type is not sufficient: a line can cover a type completely and still label three others as brightly.
| Node | Column | Cells | Dimorphism | Best specific line | Stock | Also labels | Specific / checked | Status |
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