A New Behavioral Paradigm for Visual Classical Conditioning in Drosophila.
A New Behavioral Paradigm for Visual Classical Conditioning in Drosophila.
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DOI：
10.21769/bioprotoc.4875
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发表时间：
2023-11-05
期刊：
影响因子：
0.8
通讯作者：
Hassan, Bassem
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Bengochea, Mercedes;Preat, Thomas;Hassan, Bassem
关键词：
动物的视觉学习能力是一种非凡的认知能力，对动物的生存和适应起着至关重要的作用。因此，动物的学习能力是高度保守的。尽管没有脊椎动物那样的中枢神经系统，无脊椎动物却表现出了非凡的学习能力。在这里，我们描述了一种简单的行为分析，可以分析个体可追踪的自由行走的成年果蝇的视觉联想学习。该装置是基于简单而广泛使用的行为测定来研究苍蝇的定向行为。一只被饥饿了21小时的单翼苍蝇被放置在一个平台上，平台上展示了两个不可到达的相对视觉集。这个视觉学习协议最初是为了研究果蝇处理数字信息的认知能力而开发的。通过该协议的应用，果蝇能够将特定的视觉集与食欲奖励联系起来。这种关联在2小时后的测试过程中被揭示出来，我们观察到他们在学习时偏好的变化（即他们自发偏好的变化）。此外，该协议可以潜在地用于将任何其他视觉对象/属性与奖励联系起来，扩大在个体水平上研究自由行走果蝇的视觉学习的机会。
Visual learning in animals is a remarkable cognitive ability that plays a crucial role in their survival and adaptation. Therefore, the ability to learn is highly conserved among animals. Despite lacking a centralized nervous system like vertebrates, invertebrates have demonstrated remarkable learning abilities. Here, we describe a simple behavioral assay that allows the analysis of visual associative learning in individually traceable freely walking adult fruit flies. The setup is based on the simple and widely used behavioral assay to study orientation behavior in flies. A single wing-clipped fly that has been starved for 21 h is placed on a platform where two unreachable opposite visual sets are displayed. This visual learning protocol was initially developed to study the cognitive ability of fruit flies to process numerical information. Through the application of the protocol, flies are able to associate a specific visual set with an appetitive reward. This association is revealed 2 h later during the testing session where we observed a change in their preference upon learning (i.e., change in their spontaneous preference). Moreover, this protocol could potentially be used to associate any other visual object/property to the reward, expanding the opportunities of studying visual learning in freely walking fruit flies at individual level.