Appetitive and Aversive Visual Learning in Freely Moving Drosophila

By C. Schnaitmann, K. Vogt, Tilman Triphan, Hiromu Tanimoto. 2009

54 citations recorded by the source corpus.

To compare appetitive and aversive visual memories of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, we developed a new paradigm for classical conditioning. Adult flies are trained en masse to differentially associate one of two visual conditioned stimuli (CS) (blue and green light as CS) with an appetitive or aversive chemical substance (unconditioned stimulus or US). In a test phase, flies are given a choice between the paired and the unpaired visual stimuli. Associative memory is measured based on altered visual preference in the test. If a group of flies has, for example, received a sugar reward with green light in the training, they show a significantly higher preference for the green stimulus during the test than another group of flies having received the same reward with blue light. We demonstrate critical parameters for the formation of visual appetitive memory, such as training repetition, order of reinforcement, starvation, and individual conditioning. Furthermore, we show that formic acid can act as an aversive chemical reinforcer, yielding weak, yet significant, aversive memory. These results provide a basis for future investigations into the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying visual memory and perception in Drosophila.

Subfields: Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience, Insect Science, Molecular Biology

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Citations in the corpus

Mushroom body output neurons encode valence and guide memory-based action selection in Drosophila (2014, methodology): “Control responses to sugar and shock were measured as described previously (Schnaitmann et al., 2010; Vogt et al., 2014).”
The neuronal architecture of the mushroom body provides a logic for associative learning (2014, background): “In Drosophila melanogaster, a number of different forms of learning have been observed in response to sensory stimuli (Siegel and Hall, 1979; Liu et al., 1999, 2006; Masek and Scott, 2010; Schnaitmann et al., 2010; Ofstad et al., 2011; Vogt et al., 2014).”
Shared mushroom body circuits underlie visual and olfactory memories in Drosophila (2014, unknown): “We previously developed an appetitive visual learning assay that shares critical features with olfactory conditioning (Figure 1A,B; Schnaitmann et al., 2010).”
Short Neuropeptide F Acts as a Functional Neuromodulator for Olfactory Memory in Kenyon Cells of Drosophila Mushroom Bodies (2013, background): “In other insects neuropeptides have been detected in subpopulations of Kenyon cells: tachykinin-related peptide, FMRFamide, and gastrin cholecystokinin in honeybees (Schürmann and Erber, 1990; Strausfeld et al., 2000; Takeuchi et al., 2004) and possibly orcokinin in locust (Hofer et al., 2005).”