Remote olfactory memories in Drosophila

ALEMÁN, M; LOCATELLI, F. F.; PÍREZ, N.

Buenos Aires

Conferencia; Encuentro SAN 2022; 2022

Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Neurociencias

Insects rely on olfaction to find food and mate. The olfactory cues that drive differentbehaviors are expected to have been determined by evolution and thus theirneurobiological mechanisms are assumed to depend on hardwired circuits. However, itis well established that learning and memory have a large impact in tuning olfactoryguided behaviors. The main goal of this project is to unveil the effect that exposure toolfactory stimuli during the larval development has on the olfactory preference inadulthood. We used a method that allows us to measure innate and acquired odorattractiveness. Sixty flies are placed in a chamber, which contains two vials withdifferent odorant solutions. The attractiveness is determined based on the ratio betweenthe numbers of flies trapped in each vial. We used two lines of Drosophilamelanogaster, Berlin and Canton S, and tested odorants of different innate valence.Flies were reared in either aversive or appetitive odors and 5 to 7 days after hatching weevaluated their preference for each odorant. Changes in the innate valence of the odorswere analyzed by comparing treated flies with the corresponding controls. Our resultsshow that the environment where the animals are reared modulates the behavioralresponse during adulthood. Future experiments will address the acquisition of valencewhen rearing in neutral odors. These results provide a novel paradigm to study olfactorymemories that resist metamorphosis.