Flies, unlike humans, can't manipulate the temperature of their surroundings so they need to pick the best spot for flourishing. New Brandeis University research in this week's Nature reveals that they have internal thermosensors to help them.
Biologist Paul Garrity and his colleagues have discovered that the fruitfly Drosophila has four large heat-responsive neurons located in its brain. These are activated at temperatures just above the fly's preferred temperature by an ion channel in the cell membrane known as dTrpA1, which itself acts as a molecular sensor of warmth.
This internal warmth-sensing pathway helps the fly to avoid slightly raised temperatures and acts together with a cold-avoidance pathway in the antennae to set the fly's preferred temperature--enabling the fly to pick its optimal ambient temperature range for survival.
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