larval pharynx-innervating Hugin neuron [FBbt_00110350]

larval pharynx-innervating Hugin neuron

ID: FBbt_00110350

Larval Hugin neuron that projects to the anterior pharynx. The neurites leave the subesophageal ganglion, make a U-turn and terminate at the anterior region of the dorsal pharyngeal muscles. This neuron is part of the dopaminergic SM1 cluster of the larval brain. There are two of these cells per hemisphere, the vast majority of their synaptic inputs are from interneurons, and they do not have synaptic outputs within the central nervous system (Schlegel et al., 2016).

This neuron was described as dopaminergic because it is labelled by the driver TH-GAL4 (FBtp0020119) although it is not positive for the anti-TH antibody (Selcho et al., 2009). A subset of the pharynx and the VNC hugin neurons expresses ChAT and this expression is required for full Hugin neuron function - i.e. some neurons of this class may be cholinergic (Schlegel et al., 2016). Synapsing identified in full L1 VNC EM volume - approximately 97 percent of synapses are with interneurons (Schlegel et al., 2016).