the authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest .
 in neurons a well - defined source of signaling ca2 + is the extracellular medium . 
 however , as in all metazoan cells , ca2 + is also stored in endoplasmic reticular compartments inside neurons . 
 the relevance of these stores in neuronal function has been debatable . 
 the orai gene encodes a channel that helps refill these stores from the extracellular medium in non - excitable cells through a process called store - operated ca2 + entry or soce . 
 recent findings have shown that raising the level of orai or its activator stim , and consequently soce in neurons , can restore flight to varying extents to drosophila mutants for an intracellular ca2 + -release channel  the inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate receptor ( insp3r ) . both intracellular 
 ca2 + -release and soce appear to function in neuro - modulatory domains of the flight circuit during development and acute flight . 
 these findings raise exciting new possibilities for the role of soce in vertebrate motor circuit function and the treatment of neurodegenerative disorders where intracellular ca2 + signaling has been implicated as causative . 
 
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