Repeated stress persistently suppressesthe central node in the courtship circuitry in Drosophila

Stress caused by external stressors, such as painful stimulation, can elicit a drastic set of behavioral responses. Such stress responses normally decay soon after the stressor disappears, but can become persistent when the stressor becomes longer and/or repeated. The neuronal mechanism underlying the persistence of stress responses, however, remains elusive. Here, we discovered that repeated electric shocks persistently suppress male Drosophilas courtship behavior. We comprehensively evaluated the physiological changes in the genetically defined courtship circuitry, and found that a courtship-triggering node of the circuitry, called P1 neurons, is preferentially and persistently suppressed following electric shocks. Our data uncovers in a comprehensively defined courtship circuitry that repeated stress persistently suppresses a critical node of the circuitry in a targeted fashion to alter behavior.