title: Watching the fly brain learn.
abstract: The peptidergic dorsal paired medial (DPM) neurons, which innervate the mushroom bodies in Drosophila, have been widely hypothesized to be part of the unconditioned stimulus (US) pathway of odor-shock classical conditioning. In the December 2 issue of Cell, Yu et al., using functional imaging techniques, report the surprising finding that DPMs contain odor-specific memory traces and send integrated information about the conditioned stimulus (CS) to the mushroom bodies. These findings provide important new insight into the circuitry of learning in Drosophila.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology and National Center for Behavioral Genomics, Brandeis University, 415 South Street, Waltham, Massachusetts 02454, USA.
authors.forename: Leslie C
authors.initials: LC
authors.lastname: Griffith
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001921:Brain / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*; D003214:Conditioning, Classical; D004330:Drosophila; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology; D009812:Odorants; D012903:Smell / Q000502:physiology