Ascending nociceptive pathways drive rapid escape and sustained avoidance in adult Drosophila

Nociception — the detection of harmful stimuli by the nervous system — contributes to both rapid escape and long-term avoidance behaviors. Drosophila larvae detect damaging heat, mechanical, and chemical stimuli with specialized multidendritic (md) neurons, and these cells are among the only sensory neurons that survive metamorphosis. However, it remains unknown which somatosensory neurons contribute to nociception in adult flies. In an optogenetic screen, we found that abdominal md neurons were the only somatosensory class to induce rapid escape and sustained place avoidance. Calcium imaging from abdominal md axons revealed that they are activated by thermal nociceptive stimuli (>40°C). Connectomic reconstruction showed that md axons form their strongest synaptic connections with ascending interneurons that project to the brain. Among these, we identified two classes of ascending neurons that mediate rapid escape responses and a third that supports sustained avoidance. Our findings reveal that adult Drosophila meet several core criteria commonly used to define pain: dedicated nociceptors, ascending pathways connecting peripheral sensors to integrative brain centers, and a capacity for sustained avoidance of noxious stimuli.