title: Visual Attention in Flies-Dopamine in the Mushroom Bodies Mediates the After-Effect of Cueing.
abstract: Visual environments may simultaneously comprise stimuli of different significance. Often such stimuli require incompatible responses. Selective visual attention allows an animal to respond exclusively to the stimuli at a certain location in the visual field. In the process of establishing its focus of attention the animal can be influenced by external cues. Here we characterize the behavioral properties and neural mechanism of cueing in the fly Drosophila melanogaster. A cue can be attractive, repulsive or ineffective depending upon (e.g.) its visual properties and location in the visual field. Dopamine signaling in the brain is required to maintain the effect of cueing once the cue has disappeared. Raising or lowering dopamine at the synapse abolishes this after-effect. Specifically, dopamine is necessary and sufficient in the αβ-lobes of the mushroom bodies. Evidence is provided for an involvement of the αβposterior Kenyon cells.
authors: Rudolf Virchow Center for Experimental Biomedicine, University of Würzburg, Joseph-Schneider-Straße 2, 97080, Würzburg, Germany.
authors: Sebastian
authors: S
authors: Koenig
authors: Rudolf Virchow Center for Experimental Biomedicine, University of Würzburg, Joseph-Schneider-Straße 2, 97080, Würzburg, Germany.
authors: Reinhard
authors: R
authors: Wolf
authors: Rudolf Virchow Center for Experimental Biomedicine, University of Würzburg, Joseph-Schneider-Straße 2, 97080, Würzburg, Germany.
authors: Martin
authors: M
authors: Heisenberg
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology; D003463:Cues; D004298:Dopamine / Q000378:metabolism*; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster / Q000502:physiology*; D024521:Mushroom Bodies / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D004298:Dopamine