part of has characteristic has soma location develops from capable of part of has synaptic IO in region receives synaptic input in region sends synaptic output to region adult central nervous system inferior neuropils superior neuropils primary neuron descending neuron of the posterior brain larval mooncrawler descending neuron adult cholinergic neuron adult subesophageal zone adult thoracic neuromere cell body rind along midline of adult brain adult moonwalker descending neuron 2015-12-07T16:33:11Z FBbt:00111308 MDN fly_anatomy.ontology MDN neuron DNxn049 Descending neuron whose soma is located on the midline, near the medial posterior protocerebrum of the adult brain (Bidaye et al., 2014). It arborizes bilaterally in the medial ventral protocerebrum and subesophageal zone (Bidaye et al., 2014). Axonal terminals are located in the subesophageal zone and bilaterally in the thoracic neuromeres (Bidaye et al., 2014). It is cholinergic (Cheong et al., 2024). This neuron is involved in triggering backward walking (Bidaye et al., 2014) and can do this in response to visual (Sen et al., 2017), odor (Israel et al., 2022) and mechanosensory (Dahlhoff et al., 2025) stimuli. It develops from a larval mooncrawler descending neuron (Carreira-Rosario et al., 2018). There are two of these cells per hemisphere (Bidaye et al., 2014). MDN DNxn050 DNp50 VFB:FBbt_00111308 adult walking behavior backward locomotion bilateral