Genetic Dissection of Memory Formation in Drosophila melanogaster
This extract was created in the absence of an abstract.
Excerpt
Over a decade ago, the last mutagenesis to generate mutations affecting associative learning in Drosophila ended. In all, about 3500 strains, mutagenized with ethylmethane sulfonate (EMS), were screened first in S. Benzer's laboratory at CalTech and then in W.G. Quinn's laboratory at Princeton (for review, see Aceves-Pina et al. 1983). Associative learning was assayed with an olfactory shock-avoidance conditioning procedure specifically designed to produce an average learning index for a population of flies, which were trained and tested en masse (Quinn et al. 1974). The conditioning procedure employed two conditioned stimuli (CSs): Flies received electric shock (US) if they approached one odor (CS+), but not if they approached a second odor (CS−). In a subsequent test trial, one could conclude that associative learning occurred only if more flies avoided the CS+ than the CS−, and only in this case would the learning index be greater than zero (for more details,...
