🧵 Ever seen a fly perform a full self-care ritual? 🪰 They meticulously rub their head and clean their antennae, ensuring every speck of dirt is gone. But how do they coordinate all those tiny body parts so seamlessly?👇

1/ In our study, we explored how flies synchronize their head, antennae, and forelegs during goal-directed antennal grooming. We found that when targeting an antenna, flies perform three distinct motor actions. But why these specific movements?

2/ By simulating these motions in a biomechanical model, we discovered the reason: synchronization ensures forceful and unobstructed interactions between the forelegs and antennae. This efficiency guarantees a thorough cleaning job. 💪✨

3/ Surprisingly, each body part operates independently of the others' sensory feedback. Even with amputated forelegs, flies still move their antennae and head! This suggests an open-loop (not feedback-based) coordination mechanism. 🤖

3-1/ Or, head-immobilized flies will still move their antennae and forelegs in a fascinatingly coordinated fashion. 🤯

3-2/ EVEN without antennae, the coordination between head rotations and foreleg movements remains! 😱😱😱

4/ So, what orchestrates these movements? Using the fly connectome, we constructed a subnetwork for antennal grooming. In this network, we discovered that a central group of neurons links motor circuits for the neck, antennae, and forelegs. 🧠 These neurons act as a hub for coordinating body parts.

5/ Think of it as an elegant engineering solution: these central neurons enable flexibility, allowing any brain region to initiate or stop the behavior. 🛠️

7/ Recurrent excitation: Drives non-groomed antennal pitch movements and keeps other motor networks in sync. ⚡️ Broadcast inhibition: Suppresses targeted antennal movement to prevent conflicting actions. ⛔️

8/ The fly’s strategy enables robustness yet flexibility, thus it may be a common blueprint for movement across species—or even for other behaviors in flies. 🐁🐱🦎

9/ So next time you see a fly grooming itself or you try multitasking, take a moment to appreciate the magic of coordination. Check out our preprint! 🪰🧠 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...