Quantitative genetics of learning and memory in Drosophila.

动物基于经验进行学习和记忆的能力具有适应价值。理解支持经验依赖行为可塑性的自然变异的遗传学，极大地扩展了我们对这些特征如何在物种内产生变异的视角。通过结合用于检查和绘制遗传物质图谱的分子生物学工具和复杂的行为分析，该研究计划确定了染色体或基因座上影响学习和记忆特征的大部分或所有大影响位置，这种模式生物是一种遗传上容易驯化的生物--果蝇。这些结果促进了我们对自然不同人群学习和记忆基础机制的理解。该项目还为高中、本科生和研究生提供了神经科学、遗传学和生物信息学方面的研究机会，包括来自科学和技术领域普遍代表性不足的群体的学生。选择实验表明，自然遗传变异可以在学习和记忆的进化中发挥关键作用。然而，将特定变异与所选特征联系起来的尝试在很大程度上失败了。果蝇的新的遗传面板和行为模式现在使人们有可能在基因组范围内更好地理解自然变异，这些变异对这些特征非常重要。这项提案的目标通过两个具体目标来实现。目标1：充分描述对地点学习和记忆很重要的基因座。目的2：确定影响位置学习和记忆的特定遗传位点是否也影响嗅觉学习和记忆。为了实现这些目标，一种新开发的高分辨率定量遗传小组被应用于一组行为问题，这些问题传统上是单独检查的，并采用不同的方法。与以前的工作不同，这个程序在经典和操作条件反射范式中检查学习和记忆，以检验存在共同的核心自然遗传变量影响学习和记忆的假设。通过识别和验证影响位置和嗅觉学习和记忆的关键遗传变异，拟议的实验显著提高了我们对自然群体学习和记忆的遗传基础的理解。这些结果为在多种环境中影响学习和记忆的自然遗传变量以及学习和记忆的进化提供了关键的见解。

There is adaptive value in the ability of animals to learn and remember based on experience. Understanding the genetics of natural variation that supports experience-dependent behavioral plasticity greatly expands our perspective on how variation in these traits arises within a species. Through a combination of molecular biological tools for examining and mapping genetic material and sophisticated behavioral assays, this research program identifies most or all of the large-impact positions on the chromosome, or loci, that affect learning and memory traits in a genetically tractable model organism, the fruit fly. The results advance our understanding of the mechanisms that underlie learning and memory in naturally varying populations. The project also provides research opportunities in neuroscience, genetics, and bioinformatics for high school, undergraduate, and graduate students, including students from groups generally under-represented in science and technology. Selection experiments have shown that natural genetic variants can play a critical role in the evolution of learning and memory. However, attempts to link specific variants to the selected traits have largely failed. Novel genetic panels and behavioral paradigms for Drosophila melanogaster now make it possible to better understand natural variants that are important for these traits on a genomic scale. The objectives of this proposal are addressed through two specific aims. Aim 1: Fully characterize loci that are important for Place learning and memory. Aim 2: Determine whether specific genetic loci that impact Place learning and memory also influence Olfactory learning and memory. To achieve these aims, a newly developed high-resolution quantitative genetic panel is applied to a set of behavioral problems that have traditionally been examined separately and with different approaches. Different from previous work, this program examines learning and memory in both classical and operant conditioning paradigms to test the hypothesis that there are common core natural genetic variants that influence learning and memory in general. By identifying and validating key genetic variants that influence place and olfactory learning and memory, the proposed experiments significantly improve our understanding of the genetic underpinnings of learning and memory in natural populations. Results provide critical insights into the natural genetic variants that influence learning and memory in multiple contexts, and into the evolution of learning and memory.