Mutant studies of territorial aggression in Drosophila

描述(申请人提供)：攻击性几乎是一种普遍特征 群居动物的行为。在野外，它经常被用来进入 食物和住所，保护免受捕食和选择配偶。 尽管它很重要，但人们对其背后的神经机制知之甚少。 他的行为。在几乎所有寻找过它的动物物种中， 发现了侵略和/或领土行为。这并不令人惊讶， 因此，要发现果蝇也表现出攻击性和领域性 行为。这些行为在果蝇物种中的存在并不广泛 然而，除了很难研究夏威夷物种外，其他物种都是已知的。 有强大的遗传和分子方法来探索基本的 生物过程，黑腹果蝇提供了独特的机会 旨在了解攻击性这样的复杂行为是如何 在体内组装和激活，并对神经系统产生影响。目标 这些研究的目的是对中国人的战斗行为进行量化分析 并利用分析结果来检验果蝇对黑腹果蝇 特定的化学消融和神经元突变对行为的影响。 这些研究有两个具体目的。第一个目标是：(1) 建立战斗是一种强有力的现象的条件；(2)使用这些 拍摄和分析拳击比赛的实验条件 人种图；(3)试图为Fly定义一个简化的评分程序 打架；(4)询问输赢是否有长期因素 在苍蝇中打架。在第二个目标中，我们计划：(1)改变胺的水平 像5-羟色胺、章鱼胺和多巴胺一样，使用化学和突变方法 并观察其对打斗行为的影响；(2)考察打斗行为 果蝇的各种学习突变体；以及(3)废除 苍蝇的大脑，已知在学习和记忆中很重要，使用 化学和转基因方法，并询问决策能力或 战斗输赢的短期和长期后果都被改变了。 这些研究涉及的人类健康问题是暴力、攻击、毒品 虐待和心理健康。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Aggression is a nearly universal feature of the behavior of social animals. In the wild, it is regularly used for access to food and shelter, for protection from predation and for selection of mates. Despite its importance, little is known of the neural mechanisms that underlie the behavior. In almost all species of animals in which it has been looked for, aggression and/or territorial behavior has been found. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that fruit flies also show aggression and territorial behavior. The existence of these behaviors in Drosophila species is not widely known, however, with the exception of the difficult to study Hawaiian species. With powerful genetic and molecular methods available to explore fundamental biological processes, Drosophila melanogaster offers unique opportunities for studies aimed at understanding how a complex behavior like aggression is assembled and activated within, and impacts upon the nervous system. The goals of these studies are to perform a quantitative analysis of fighting behavior in Drosophila melanogaster and to use the analysis to examine the consequences of specific chemical ablations and neuronal mutations on the behavior. There are two Specific Aims of these studies. In the First Aim we plan to: (1) establish conditions under which fighting is a robust phenomenon; (2) use these experimental conditions to videotape and analyze fights in order to construct an ethogram; (3) attempt to define a simplified scoring procedure for fly fights; (4) ask whether there is a long-term component to winning and losing fights in flies. In the Second Aim we plan to: (1) change the levels of amines like serotonin, octopamine and dopamine using chemical and mutant approaches and observe the effects on fighting behavior; (2) examine the fighting behavior of various learning mutants in flies; and (3) abolish mushroom bodies in the brains of flies, which are known to be important in learning and memory, using chemical and transgenic approaches and ask whether decision making ability or the short- and long-term consequences of winning or losing fights are altered. The human health issues these studies relate to are violence, aggression, drug abuse and mental health.