Cold sensing by a glutamate receptor drives avoidance behavior in Drosophila larvae.

A glutamate receptor named Clumsy enables cold avoidance in Drosophila larvae, with 100% of head cold-sensitive neurons relying on it for detection.

• Why it matters: Understanding cold sensation mechanisms is crucial because they are less well characterized than heat and cool sensing, impacting knowledge of survival strategies in animals.
• What they did: Researchers used custom thermoelectric devices to deliver precise cold stimuli and identified head-located aC3da neurons as key for cold avoidance, with Clumsy acting as a novel cold sensor.
• The result: Knocking down Clumsy suppresses cold sensitivity in neurons, and its heterologous expression confers cold responsiveness, revealing a new pathway for cold detection that could inform broader sensory biology.