Abstract
The human ability to sense gravity and sounds relies on specialized vestibular and auditory organs, respectively, in our inner ear. In the fly, the ability to hear has been ascribed to the antenna, whereas the gravity sensor had remained unidentified. We found that the fly has implemented both sensory modalities into a single system, the Johnston’s organ, which houses specialized clusters of mechanosensory neurons. Each cluster monitors specific movements of the antenna and feeds into distinct neural pathways that are reminiscent of the vestibular and auditory pathways, respectively, in our brain.
