{"doi":"10.7554/elife.76663","title":"A persistent behavioral state enables sustained predation of humans by mosquitoes","abstract":"<jats:p>\n                    Predatory animals pursue prey in a noisy sensory landscape, deciding when to continue or abandon their chase. The mosquito\n                    <jats:italic>Aedes aegypti</jats:italic>\n                    is a micropredator that first detects humans at a distance through sensory cues such as carbon dioxide. As a mosquito nears its target, it senses more proximal cues such as body heat that guide it to a meal of blood. How long the search for blood continues after initial detection of a human is not known. Here, we show that a 5 s optogenetic pulse of fictive carbon dioxide induced a persistent behavioral state in female mosquitoes that lasted for more than 10 min. This state is highly specific to females searching for a blood meal and was not induced in recently blood-fed females or in males, who do not feed on blood. In males that lack the gene\n                    <jats:italic>fruitless</jats:italic>\n                    , which controls persistent social behaviors in other insects, fictive carbon dioxide induced a long-lasting behavior response resembling the predatory state of females. Finally, we show that the persistent state triggered by detection of fictive carbon dioxide enabled females to engorge on a blood meal mimic offered up to 14 min after the initial 5 s stimulus. Our results demonstrate that a persistent internal state allows female mosquitoes to integrate multiple human sensory cues over long timescales, an ability that is key to their success as an apex micropredator of humans.\n                  </jats:p>","journal":"eLife","year":2022,"id":648125,"datarank":1.0582686783946547,"base_score":3.6888794541139363,"endowment":3.6888794541139363,"self_citation_contribution":0.5533319181170905,"citation_network_contribution":0.5049367602775643,"self_endowment_contribution":0.5533319181170905,"citer_contribution":0.5049367602775643,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":39,"citer_count":36,"citers_with_citation_signal":28,"citers_with_endowment":28,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":null,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":false,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":null,"fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1455821,"name":"Anjali Pandey","orcid":"0000-0001-5521-635X","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":628626,"name":"Adriana Rosas-Villegas","orcid":"0000-0001-9114-0882","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":267007,"name":"Leslie B. Vosshall","orcid":"0000-0002-6060-8099","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":395736,"name":"Trevor R. Sorrells","orcid":"0000-0002-3527-8622","position":0,"is_corresponding":false}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":{"has_enrichment":true,"resolved":true,"title":"A persistent behavioral state enables sustained predation of humans by mosquitoes","abstract":"<jats:p>\n                    Predatory animals pursue prey in a noisy sensory landscape, deciding when to continue or abandon their chase. The mosquito\n                    <jats:italic>Aedes aegypti</jats:italic>\n                    is a micropredator that first detects humans at a distance through sensory cues such as carbon dioxide. As a mosquito nears its target, it senses more proximal cues such as body heat that guide it to a meal of blood. How long the search for blood continues after initial detection of a human is not known. Here, we show that a 5 s optogenetic pulse of fictive carbon dioxide induced a persistent behavioral state in female mosquitoes that lasted for more than 10 min. This state is highly specific to females searching for a blood meal and was not induced in recently blood-fed females or in males, who do not feed on blood. In males that lack the gene\n                    <jats:italic>fruitless</jats:italic>\n                    , which controls persistent social behaviors in other insects, fictive carbon dioxide induced a long-lasting behavior response resembling the predatory state of females. Finally, we show that the persistent state triggered by detection of fictive carbon dioxide enabled females to engorge on a blood meal mimic offered up to 14 min after the initial 5 s stimulus. Our results demonstrate that a persistent internal state allows female mosquitoes to integrate multiple human sensory cues over long timescales, an ability that is key to their success as an apex micropredator of humans.\n                  </jats:p>","is_dataset_classified":null,"base_score":3.6888794541139363,"endowment":3.6888794541139363,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"views":0,"has_version_chain":false,"is_dataset":false,"is_oa":false,"pmid":"35550041","pmcid":"PMC9154740","openalex_id":"https://openalex.org/W4280523569","authors":[],"funders":[{"funder_name":"Howard Hughes Medical Institute","grant_id":"Investigator Award","title":null},{"funder_name":"Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund for Medical Research","grant_id":"Postdoctoral Fellowship","title":null},{"funder_name":"Kavli Neural Systems Institute, The Rockefeller University","grant_id":"Pilot Award","title":null},{"funder_name":"Howard Hughes Medical Institute","grant_id":"","title":null},{"funder_name":"Howard Hughes Medical Institute","grant_id":"","title":null}],"total_grants":5,"fwci":3.3118,"citation_percentile":0.93552258,"influential_citations":0,"citation_trend":[{"year":2022,"count":9},{"year":2023,"count":7},{"year":2024,"count":7},{"year":2025,"count":13},{"year":2026,"count":3}],"oa_status":"gold","license":"cc-by","oa_locations":[{"url":"https://doi.org/10.7554/elife.76663","host_type":"journal"},{"url":"https://doi.org/10.7554/elife.76663","host_type":"publisher"},{"url":"https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/76663/elife-76663-v2.pdf","host_type":"publisher"},{"url":"https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/76663/elife-76663-v2.xml","host_type":"publisher"},{"url":"https://elifesciences.org/articles/76663","host_type":"publisher"},{"url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35550041","host_type":"repository"},{"url":"https://doaj.org/article/45ff31b80f544f45a9486c67dbcfdf6c","host_type":"repository"},{"url":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/9154740","host_type":"repository"},{"url":"https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC9154740","host_type":"Europe_PMC"},{"url":"https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC9154740?pdf=render","host_type":"Europe_PMC"}],"fields_of_study":["Neurobiology and Insect Physiology Research","Insect and Arachnid Ecology and Behavior","Plant and animal studies","Aedes","Animals","Carbon Dioxide","Cues","Female","Humans","Male","Predatory Behavior"],"mesh_terms":["Aedes","Animals","Carbon Dioxide","Cues","Female","Humans","Male","Predatory Behavior"],"keywords":["Blood meal","Optogenetics","Stimulus (psychology)","Biology","Sensory system","Predation","Aedes aegypti","Ecology","Zoology","Neuroscience","Psychology","Cognitive psychology","Genetics","Behavior","Genomics","Machine Learning","Blood Feeding","Persistent State","Aedes Aegypti Mosquito"],"sdg_mappings":[{"sdg_number":0,"sdg_label":"Life below water"}],"linked_datasets":[],"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"database_accessions":[{"name":"doi"}],"source":"live","citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-08-10T02:16:40.194859Z","pmid":null,"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":[]}