During training ( a), the flight simulator mode is switched off.
With respect to short-term memory the mushroom bodies of Drosophila are specially required for chemosensory learning tasks, but not for associative learning and memory in general.Ĭlassic conditioning in the flight simulator with normal ( b,c) and HU-treated, MB-less flies ( d). No forms of consolidated memory have been tested in mushroom body-less flies. The latter used the reinforcers of heat, visual oscillations, mechanical shaking, or sucrose, and as conditioned stimuli, color, intensity contrast, as well as stationary and moving visual patterns.
Among the learning tasks not requiring these structures are a case of motor learning (yaw torque/heat), a test of the fly's spatial orientation in total darkness, conditioned courtship suppression by mated females, and nine different examples of visual learning. Only in paradigms involving chemosensory cues as conditioned stimuli have flies been found to be compromised by a block in the mushroom body pathway. A total of 18 associative learning/memory tests have been applied to Drosophila melanogaster flies lacking mushroom bodies.
