{"doi":"10.1016/j.cub.2023.06.080","title":"A single oscillating proto-hypothalamic neuron gates taxis behavior in the primitive chordate Ciona","abstract":"Ciona larvae display a number of behaviors, including negative phototaxis. In negative phototaxis, the larvae first perform short spontaneous rhythmic casting swims. As larvae are cast in a light field, their photoreceptors are directionally shaded by an associated pigment cell, providing a phototactic cue. This then evokes an extended negative taxis swim. We report here that the larval forebrain of Ciona has a previously uncharacterized single slow-oscillating inhibitory neuron (neuron cor-assBVIN78) that projects to the midbrain, where it targets key interneurons of the phototaxis circuit known as the photoreceptor relay neurons. The anatomical location, gene expression, and oscillation of cor-assBVIN78 suggest homology to oscillating neurons of the vertebrate hypothalamus. Ablation of cor-assBVIN78 results in larvae showing extended phototaxis-like swims, even in the absence of phototactic cues. These results indicate that cor-assBVIN78 has a gating activity on phototaxis by projecting temporally oscillating inhibition to the photoreceptor relay neurons. However, in intact larvae, the frequency of cor-assBVIN78 oscillation does not match that of the rhythmic spontaneous swims, indicating that the troughs in oscillations do not themselves initiate swims but rather that cor-assBVIN78 may modulate the phototaxis circuit by filtering out low-level inputs while restricting them temporally to the troughs in inhibition.","journal":"Current Biology","year":2023,"id":364256,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":7,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.951,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":475267,"name":"Erin Newman‐Smith","orcid":"0000-0003-2752-7227","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":476216,"name":"Matthew J. Kourakis","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1119050,"name":"Yishen Miao","orcid":"0000-0001-7868-7402","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":475266,"name":"Cezar Borba","orcid":"0000-0002-6353-5841","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1119470,"name":"Juan Medina","orcid":null,"position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1119471,"name":"Tao Laurent","orcid":null,"position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1119472,"name":"Benjamin Gallean","orcid":null,"position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1119051,"name":"Emmanuel Faure","orcid":"0000-0003-2787-0885","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":475269,"name":"William C. Smith","orcid":"0000-0002-6257-7695","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1119469,"name":"Janeva Chung","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":44,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:14:36.728255Z","pmid":"37490920","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}