PKC in motorneurons underlies self-learning, a form of motor learning in Drosophila
Tethering a fly for stationary flight allows for exquisite control of its sensory input, such as visual or olfactory stimuli or a punishing infrared laser beam. A torque meter measures the turning attempts of the tethered fly around its vertical body axis. By punishing, say, left turning attempts (i...
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PeerJ Inc.
2016
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| Online Access: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4860329/ |
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pubmed-48603292016-05-10 PKC in motorneurons underlies self-learning, a form of motor learning in Drosophila Colomb, Julien Brembs, Björn Entomology Tethering a fly for stationary flight allows for exquisite control of its sensory input, such as visual or olfactory stimuli or a punishing infrared laser beam. A torque meter measures the turning attempts of the tethered fly around its vertical body axis. By punishing, say, left turning attempts (in a homogeneous environment), one can train a fly to restrict its behaviour to right turning attempts. It was recently discovered that this form of operant conditioning (called operant self-learning), may constitute a form of motor learning in Drosophila. Previous work had shown that Protein Kinase C (PKC) and the transcription factor dFoxP were specifically involved in self-learning, but not in other forms of learning. These molecules are specifically involved in various forms of motor learning in other animals, such as compulsive biting in Aplysia, song-learning in birds, procedural learning in mice or language acquisition in humans. Here we describe our efforts to decipher which PKC gene is involved in self-learning in Drosophila. We also provide evidence that motorneurons may be one part of the neuronal network modified during self-learning experiments. The collected evidence is reminiscent of one of the simplest, clinically relevant forms of motor learning in humans, operant reflex conditioning, which also relies on motorneuron plasticity. PeerJ Inc. 2016-04-25 /pmc/articles/PMC4860329/ /pubmed/27168980 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.1971 Text en ©2016 Colomb and Brembs http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited. |
| repository_type |
Open Access Journal |
| institution_category |
Foreign Institution |
| institution |
US National Center for Biotechnology Information |
| building |
NCBI PubMed |
| collection |
Online Access |
| language |
English |
| format |
Online |
| author |
Colomb, Julien Brembs, Björn |
| spellingShingle |
Colomb, Julien Brembs, Björn PKC in motorneurons underlies self-learning, a form of motor learning in Drosophila |
| author_facet |
Colomb, Julien Brembs, Björn |
| author_sort |
Colomb, Julien |
| title |
PKC in motorneurons underlies self-learning, a form of motor learning in Drosophila |
| title_short |
PKC in motorneurons underlies self-learning, a form of motor learning in Drosophila |
| title_full |
PKC in motorneurons underlies self-learning, a form of motor learning in Drosophila |
| title_fullStr |
PKC in motorneurons underlies self-learning, a form of motor learning in Drosophila |
| title_full_unstemmed |
PKC in motorneurons underlies self-learning, a form of motor learning in Drosophila |
| title_sort |
pkc in motorneurons underlies self-learning, a form of motor learning in drosophila |
| description |
Tethering a fly for stationary flight allows for exquisite control of its sensory input, such as visual or olfactory stimuli or a punishing infrared laser beam. A torque meter measures the turning attempts of the tethered fly around its vertical body axis. By punishing, say, left turning attempts (in a homogeneous environment), one can train a fly to restrict its behaviour to right turning attempts. It was recently discovered that this form of operant conditioning (called operant self-learning), may constitute a form of motor learning in Drosophila. Previous work had shown that Protein Kinase C (PKC) and the transcription factor dFoxP were specifically involved in self-learning, but not in other forms of learning. These molecules are specifically involved in various forms of motor learning in other animals, such as compulsive biting in Aplysia, song-learning in birds, procedural learning in mice or language acquisition in humans. Here we describe our efforts to decipher which PKC gene is involved in self-learning in Drosophila. We also provide evidence that motorneurons may be one part of the neuronal network modified during self-learning experiments. The collected evidence is reminiscent of one of the simplest, clinically relevant forms of motor learning in humans, operant reflex conditioning, which also relies on motorneuron plasticity. |
| publisher |
PeerJ Inc. |
| publishDate |
2016 |
| url |
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4860329/ |
| _version_ |
1613576810583293952 |