Optogenetic induction of appetitive and aversive taste memories in Drosophila
- University of British Columbia, Canada
Abstract
Tastes typically evoke innate behavioral responses that can be broadly categorized as acceptance or rejection. However, research in Drosophila melanogaster indicates that taste responses also exhibit plasticity through experience-dependent changes in mushroom body circuits. In this study, we develop a novel taste learning paradigm using closed-loop optogenetics. We find that appetitive and aversive taste memories can be formed by pairing gustatory stimuli with optogenetic activation of sensory neurons or dopaminergic neurons encoding reward or punishment. As with olfactory memories, distinct dopaminergic subpopulations drive the parallel formation of short- and long-term appetitive memories. Long-term memories are protein synthesis-dependent and have energetic requirements that are satisfied by a variety of caloric food sources or by direct stimulation of MB-MP1 dopaminergic neurons. Our paradigm affords new opportunities to probe plasticity mechanisms within the taste system and understand the extent to which taste responses depend on experience.
Data availability
All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in the manuscript; spreadsheets of raw numerical data are provided as a supplementary download.
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Author details
Funding
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (RGPIN-2016-03857)
- Michael D Gordon
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (RGPAS 492846-16)
- Michael D Gordon
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Copyright
© 2023, Jelen et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Optogenetic induction of appetitive and aversive taste memories in Drosophila
eLife 12:e81535.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.81535
