Genetic effects on an anesthetic-sensitive pathway in the brain of Drosophila

General anesthetics are known to inhibit the electrically induced escape response of the fruitfly through action within the brain. We examined this response and its sensitivity to anesthetics in several mutants that cause significant disruption of the mushroom body and other structures of the central brain in adult flies. Because we show here that anesthesia sensitivity is influenced by genetic background, we have used a set of congenic mutant lines. Sensitivity to halothane is normal in most of these lines, indicating that the anesthetic target is unaffected by the gross status of the central brain. Thus, for the escape response, anesthetic sensitivity is not a global feature but reflects action at a localized target. Only the mushroom body defect (mud) line showed an increased sensitivity of the escape response to halothane. Sensitivity to two other anesthetics is also perturbed in this line, albeit less dramatically so. The behavior of mud/+ heterozygotes and the comparison of brain anatomy among all the mutant lines imply that the effect of the mud mutation on anesthesia is not via gross alteration of central brain structures. The possibility that an adventitious mutation in the mud line is responsible for the effects on anesthesia is disfavored by the behavior of a heterozygote between two mud alleles. Although we do not yet know whether the mud gene encodes an anesthetic target or influences the functioning of an anesthetic-sensitive neuron in this pathway, our work indicates that this gene regulates the effects of halothane on a circumscribed pathway.