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Query: UMLS:C0085632 (apathy)
 4,089 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

To study learning and memory of Drosophila melanogaster in the flight simulator, single flies are trained in an operant conditioning paradigm to avoid a course towards visual objects that are associated with heat. The results demonstrate that normal flies (wild-type "Berlin") can quickly learn to avoid the heat-associated objects and retain the memory. This allows us to further explore a recently communicated long-term effect of preimaginal benzaldehyde (BAL) influence on the association of visual objects with the aversive odor of BAL. Here we show that flies, exposed to BAL in the embryonic, larval or adult stage, do not accompany by a similar indifference to heat shocks. The flies are successfully trained to avoid the heat-associated visual patterns. It shows that the learning acquisition is not affected during the operant conditioning in the flight simulator. Neither object perception nor object discrimination is altered after exposure to BAL, as is shown by Fourier analysis. However, the test results after training show that exposure to BAL interferes directly with memory formation in Drosophila. It takes at least two generations of growth on the noncontaminated medium that the strain recovers fully from BAL-induced amnesia. The BAL treatment seems not only to affect the associative memory formation, but in addition the flies' development in general, as is indicated by prolonged developmental time. However, the impaired memory after BAL treatment in different stages seems to have nothing to do with an influence of BAL on the cAMP-level.
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PMID:Conditioned visual flight orientation in Drosophila melanogaster abolished by benzaldehyde. 980 27

Context-dependent preferences in a choice between an upper and a lower visual object of otherwise identical appearance were recorded during stationary flight of the fruitfly, Drosophila melanogaster, in a flight simulator. The test animal was held in a fixed orientation at the center of a wing-beat processor that converts attempted turns into counter-rotations of a surrounding cylindrical panorama. This allowed the fly to maneuver the preferred object into the actual direction of flight. Single flies were trained to avoid a course toward the visual object that had been associated with the aversive odor benzaldehyde (BAL). Conditioned object avoidance was investigated in different treatment groups by collective evaluation of the scores from 80 long-lasting flights (> 1 hr). In addition to a significant cross-modal association, we found a striking long-term effect of transient exposure to BAL both in the embryonic and larval states. The preimaginal experience significantly increased the indifference to BAL in the adult flies. Disturbed vision does not account for this effect: Neither the perception nor the discrimination of the visual objects was significantly impaired in the investigated flies. Disturbed olfaction could explain the present results. Recently, however, preimaginal BAL uptake has been found to interfere directly with the retention of heat-shock-conditioned object avoidance.
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PMID:Association of visual objects and olfactory cues in Drosophila. 1045 63