Fig. 7: The D-AVA circuit biases toward reward behavior in threat-reward decision-making.

a Diagram of the neural circuits mediating responses to diacetyl and hyperosmotic glycerol. b Glycerol-induced AVA depolarization was mitigated by diacetyl. Glycerol (2 M) was delivered to the vicinity of the worm nose whereas diacetyl was added to the bath solution (1:1000 dilution). Compared with wild type (wt) control, p = 0.045 wt diacetyl and 0.720 unc-49 RNAi diacetyl for depolarization amplitude, and 0.048 wt diacetyl and 0.684 unc-49 RNAi diacetyl for depolarization duration. p values for differences between wt diacetyl and unc-49 RNAi diacetyl are 0.021 and 0.036 for depolarization amplitude and duration, respectively. c Disruption of the D-AVA circuit by AVA-targeted unc-49 RNAi reduced escape probability in a multisensory behavioral assay, in which 10–15 worms were placed inside a glycerol ring (2 M, 1-cm diameter) on an agar plate (6-cm diameter) with two drops of diacetyl (1:1000 dilution) outside of the glycerol ring. The percentage of worms that escaped in 15 min was quantified. Only one concentration of glycerol was tested in each assay. Compared with wt, p = 0.928, 0.170, 0.951, 0.015, 0.008, and 0.030 at glycerol concentrations of 0, 0.5, 1, 2, 3, and 4 M, respectively. d Locomotor kinematics of worms in the presence of both a glycerol ring and two drops of diacetyl outside the ring. p = 0.001 forward distance, 0.001 backward distance, 0.003 backward/forward ratio, 0.077 forward speed, and 0.724 backward speed. The asterisks indicate significant differences compared with wt (*p < 0.05, **p < 0.01) based on either one-way ANOVA with Tukey’s post hoc test or unpaired two-sided t-test. The numbers inside brackets indicate sample size (n). n = numbers of independently recorded cells in b, but numbers of individual worms in c and d. In c, sample sizes of the wt and unc-49 RNAi groups varied among different glycerol concentrations. For wt, n = 10, 10, 10, 17, 14, and 11 for the concentrations of 0–4 M. For unc-49 RNAi, n = 13, 13, 10, 16, 12, and 13 for the concentrations of 0–4 M. Data are presented as mean values ± SEM. Source data are provided as a Source data file.