Drosophila strategies to study psychiatric disorders

Alphen, Bart van; Swinderen, Bruno van

doi:10.1016/j.brainresbull.2011.09.007

Cited by 68 publications

(50 citation statements)

References 181 publications

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“…Maladaptive behavior apparent in a variety of human cognitive disorders, such as schizophrenia, or in key Drosophila mutants proposed as models for these disorders (van Alphen and van Swinderen, 2011), may result in part from a failure to match endogenous attention processes to the pace of a continuously changing and moving environment. Access to ongoing attention-like dynamics in the malleable Drosophila brain, by using competing frequency tags, should reveal how brains select and suppress stimuli to maintain appropriate responsiveness levels and behavior in a visually complex environment.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Competing visual flicker reveals attention-like rivalry in the fly brain

Swinderen

2012

Front. Integr. Neurosci.

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There is increasing evidence that invertebrates such as flies display selective attention (van Swinderen, 2011a), although parallel processing of simultaneous cues remains difficult to demonstrate in such tiny brains. Local field potential (LFP) activity in the fly brain is associated with stimulus selection and suppression (van Swinderen and Greenspan, 2003; Tang and Juusola, 2010), like in other animals such as monkeys (Fries et al., 2001), suggesting that similar processes may be working to control attention in vastly different brains. To investigate selective attention to competing visual cues, I recorded brain activity from behaving flies while applying a method used in human attention studies: competing visual flicker, or frequency tags (Vialatte et al., 2010). Behavioral fixation in a closed-loop flight arena increased the response to visual flicker in the fly brain, and visual salience modulated responses to competing tags arranged in a center-surround pattern. Visual competition dynamics in the fly brain were dependent on the rate of pattern presentation, suggesting that attention-like switching in insects is tuned to the pace of visual changes in the environment rather than simply the passage of time.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Competing visual flicker reveals attention-like rivalry in the fly brain

Swinderen

2012

Front. Integr. Neurosci.

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“…The Drosophila model is also attractive because of its quicker generation time, large number of progeny for better selection, and easy maintenance of the animal model. Nevertheless, Drosophila has been underused in the study of complex disorders with abnormal behavioral components because of lack of reliable tests to assess complex behavioral phenotypes relevant to human [47,48].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of bisphenol A on Drosophila melanogaster behavior – A new model for the studies on neurodevelopmental disorders

Kaur

Simon

Chauhan³

et al. 2015

Behavioural Brain Research

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“…Learning about novel cues associated with others and then preferring such cues over alternatives constitutes social learning, defined as the acquisition of new information by an individual (observer) through interaction with either another individual (model) or cues left by that individual [22]. While one can question whether such simple social learning can inform us about elaborate cases of social learning among vertebrates, experience clearly indicates that simple, tractable behaviours and brain functions identified in fruitflies have been instrumental for furthering our understanding of behaviour and cognition in more complex animals, including humans [52,53]. Further work on fruitfly larvae can elucidate the social cues or signals they rely on, and the neurobiological pathways that modulate behaviour and learning in a social context.…”

Section: (D) Conclusion and Prospectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attraction to and learning from social cues in fruitfly larvae

Durisko

Dukas

2013

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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We examined the use of social information in fruitfly larvae, which represent an ideal model system owing to their robust learning abilities, small number of neurons and well-studied neurogenetics. Focal larvae showed attraction to the distinct odour emanating from food occupied by other larvae. In controlled learning experiments, focal larvae preferred novel odours previously paired with food occupied by other larvae over novel odours previously paired with unoccupied food. When we gave groups of larvae a choice between food patches differing in quality, more larvae aggregated on the higher-quality food, suggesting that attraction to and learning about cues associated with other larvae can be beneficial. Furthermore, larvae were more likely to find the best available food patch in trials when that food patch was occupied by other larvae than in trials when that food patch was unoccupied. Our data suggest, however, that the benefits from joining others may be at least partially offset by the fitness costs of increased competition, because larvae reared in isolation did as well as or better than larvae reared in groups on three key fitness parameters: developmental rate, survival rate and adult dry body mass. Our work establishes fruitfly larvae as a highly tractable model species for further research on the mechanisms that modulate behaviour and learning in a social context.

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Drosophila strategies to study psychiatric disorders

Cited by 68 publications

References 181 publications

Competing visual flicker reveals attention-like rivalry in the fly brain

Competing visual flicker reveals attention-like rivalry in the fly brain

Effect of bisphenol A on Drosophila melanogaster behavior – A new model for the studies on neurodevelopmental disorders

Attraction to and learning from social cues in fruitfly larvae

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