Continuous integration of heading and goal directions guides steering.

Navigating animals must integrate a diverse array of sensory cues into a single locomotor decision. Insects perform intricate navigational feats using a brain region termed the central complex in which an animal's heading direction is transformed through several layers of circuitry to elicit goal-directed locomotion. These transformations occur mostly in the fan-shaped body (FB), a major locus of multi-sensory integration in the central complex. Key aspects of these sensorimotor computations have been extensively characterized by functional studies, leveraging the genetic tools available in the fruit fly. However, our understanding of how neuronal activity in the FB dictates locomotor behaviors during navigation remains enigmatic. Here, we manipulate the activity of two key neuronal populations that input into the FB-the PFN