title: Chemically reinforced conditioned courtship in Drosophila: responses of wild-type and the dunce, amnesiac and don giovanni mutants.
abstract: To test the hypothesis that associative learning is the basis for conditioned courtship, male Drosophila melanogaster were paired with virgin females in the presence of quinine, known to be a negative reinforcer in a learning paradigm independent of courtship. Such "experienced" wild-type males failed to court virgin females and remained refractory to them for 1-2 h. But experienced males from the learning-defective strain, dunce, continued to court females at high levels; and experienced males from the retention-defective strain, amnesiac, failed to demonstrate the wild-type refractory period. Finally, males from the don giovanni strain, defective with respect to fertilized-female conditioning, were conditioned by presentation of virgin females and quinine. Courtship-depressing effects of cis-vaccenyl alcohol, which can be recovered from fertilized females, were confirmed, but no evidence for its role as a negative reinforcer of male courtship was obtained.
authors.forename: S L
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Ackerman
authors.forename: R W
authors.initials: RW
authors.lastname: Siegel
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001362:Avoidance Learning / Q000187:drug effects; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000187:drug effects*; D003213:Conditioning, Psychological / Q000187:drug effects; D003380:Courtship; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology; D005229:Fatty Acids, Monounsaturated; D005231:Fatty Acids, Unsaturated / Q000494:pharmacology; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D009154:Mutation; D011803:Quinine / Q000494:pharmacology
chemical_list: D005229:Fatty Acids, Monounsaturated; D005231:Fatty Acids, Unsaturated; C044856:11-octadecenoyl alcohol; D011803:Quinine