title: Suppression of a single pair of mushroom body output neurons inDrosophilatriggers aversive associations.
abstract: Memory includes the processes of acquisition, consolidation and retrieval. In the study of aversive olfactory memory inDrosophila melanogaster, flies are first exposed to an odor (conditioned stimulus, CS+) that is associated with an electric shock (unconditioned stimulus, US), then to another odor (CS-) without the US, before allowing the flies to choose to avoid one of the two odors. The center for memory formation is the mushroom body which consists of Kenyon cells (KCs), dopaminergic neurons (DANs) and mushroom body output neurons (MBONs). However, the roles of individual neurons are not fully understood. We focused on the role of a single pair of GABAergic neurons (MBON-γ1pedc) and found that it could inhibit the effects of DANs, resulting in the suppression of aversive memory acquisition during the CS- odor presentation, but not during the CS+ odor presentation. We propose that MBON-γ1pedc suppresses the DAN-dependent effect that can convey the aversive US during the CS- odor presentation, and thereby prevents an insignificant stimulus from becoming an aversive US.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences Graduate School of Science The University of Tokyo Bunkyo-ku Japan; Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences The University of Tokyo Bunkyo-ku Japan.
authors.forename: Yutaro
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ueoka
authors.affiliation: Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences The University of Tokyo Bunkyo-ku Japan.
authors.forename: Makoto
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hiroi
authors.affiliation: Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences The University of Tokyo Bunkyo-ku Japan.
authors.forename: Takashi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Abe
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences Graduate School of Science The University of Tokyo Bunkyo-ku Japan; Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences The University of Tokyo Bunkyo-ku Japan.
authors.forename: Tetsuya
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Tabata
keywords: Drosophila; MBON; dopaminergic; memory acquisition; memory suppression; olfactory aversive memory