Animals are often bombarded with visual information and must prioritize specific visual features based on their current needs. The neuronal circuits that detect and relay visual features have been well studied^{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8}. Much less is known about how an animal adjusts its visual attention as its goals or environmental conditions change. During social behaviours, flies need to focus on nearby flies^9,10,11. Here we study how the flow of visual information is altered when female Drosophila enter an aggressive state. From the connectome, we identify three state-dependent circuit motifs poised to modify the response of an aggressive female to fly-sized visual objects: convergence of excitatory inputs from neurons conveying select visual features and internal state; dendritic disinhibition of select visual feature detectors; and a switch that toggles between two visual feature detectors. Using cell-type-specific genetic tools, together with behavioural and neurophysiological analyses, we show that each of these circuit motifs is used during female aggression. We reveal that features of this same switch operate in male Drosophila during courtship pursuit, suggesting that disparate social behaviours may share circuit mechanisms. Our study provides a compelling example of using the connectome to infer circuit mechanisms that underlie dynamic processing of sensory signals.

动物经常受到视觉信息的轰炸，必须根据它们当前的需求优先考虑特定的视觉特征。检测和传递视觉特征的神经元回路已经得到了很好的研究^{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8}。关于动物如何随着目标或环境条件的变化而调整其视觉注意力，人们知之甚少。在社交行为中，苍蝇需要关注附近的苍蝇^9,10,11。在这里，我们研究了当雌性果蝇进入攻击性状态时，视觉信息的流动是如何改变的。从连接组中，我们确定了三个状态依赖性的电路基序，它们准备改变攻击性雌性对苍蝇大小的视觉对象的反应：来自神经元的兴奋性输入的汇聚，传达选定的视觉特征和内部状态;选定视觉特征检测器的树突状去抑制;以及一个在两个视觉特征检测器之间切换的开关。使用细胞类型特异性遗传工具，以及行为和神经生理学分析，我们表明这些回路基序中的每一个都在女性攻击过程中被使用。我们揭示了在雄性果蝇的求偶追求过程中，这种相同开关的特征起作用，这表明不同的社会行为可能共享回路机制。我们的研究提供了一个令人信服的例子，说明使用连接组来推断作为感觉信号动态处理基础的电路机制。