Learning the specific quality of taste reinforcement in larval Drosophila

eLife

Teiichi Tanimura¹  Daisuke Miura¹  Bertram Gerber²  Michael Schleyer² 

[1] Department of Biology, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan;Department of Genetics of Learning and Memory, Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology, Magdeburg, Germany;

关键词: punishment;    reward;    valence;    memory;    olfaction;    taste;   

DOI  :  10.7554/eLife.04711

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

The only property of reinforcement insects are commonly thought to learn about is its value. We show that larval Drosophila not only remember the value of reinforcement (How much?), but also its quality (What?). This is demonstrated both within the appetitive domain by using sugar vs amino acid as different reward qualities, and within the aversive domain by using bitter vs high-concentration salt as different qualities of punishment. From the available literature, such nuanced memories for the quality of reinforcement are unexpected and pose a challenge to present models of how insect memory is organized. Given that animals as simple as larval Drosophila, endowed with but 10,000 neurons, operate with both reinforcement value and quality, we suggest that both are fundamental aspects of mnemonic processing—in any brain.

【 授权许可】

Unknown