Muscular regulation of strategic self-righting behavior in Drosophila larvae

Adjusting posture is crucial for animals. When animals topple over, they attempt to restore their body posture to the default state. In the case of Drosophila larvae, they can restore their posture through self-righting (SR) behavior when placed side-up or ventral-up. However, the mechanisms of muscular regulation underlying SR behavior remains unknown. In this study, we reported that Drosophila larvae achieve postural reorientation through four strategies and their combinations for the first time, while exhibiting strategic bias. Among the four SR strategies, the most frequently used were the asymmetric SR-fwd, followed by the oblique muscle-powered SR-torsion as the second most frequently employed strategy, while SR-bwd and SR-roll exhibit significantly lower utilization frequencies. These findings not only provide a detailed characterization of larval SR behavior and its strategic diversity, but also elucidate critical muscular regulatory mechanisms underlying SR execution and strategy bias modulation. This research offers important implications for motion control system design and biomimetic robotics development, particularly regarding self-posture adjustment mechanisms.