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Chemical Senses Advance Access originally published online on May 29, 2008
Chemical Senses 2008 33(6):563-573; doi:10.1093/chemse/bjn024
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© 2008 The Authors
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Behavioral Analyses of Sugar Processing in Choice, Feeding, and Learning in Larval Drosophila

Angela Schipanski1, Ayse Yarali, Thomas Niewalda and Bertram Gerber

Universität Würzburg, Lehrstuhl für Genetik und Neurobiologie, Biozentrum, Am Hubland, 970 74 Würzburg, Germany 1 Present address: Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf, Institut für Neuropathologie, Martinistraße 52, 20246 Hamburg, Germany

Correspondence to be sent to: Bertram Gerber, Universität Würzburg, Lehrstuhl für Genetik und Neurobiologie, Biozentrum, Am Hubland, 970 74 Würzburg, Germany. e-mail: bertram.gerber{at}biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de


  Abstract

Gustatory stimuli have at least 2 kinds of function: They can support immediate, reflexive responses (such as substrate choice and feeding) and they can drive internal reinforcement. We provide behavioral analyses of these functions with respect to sweet taste in larval Drosophila. The idea is to use the dose–effect characteristics as behavioral "fingerprints" to dissociate reflexive and reinforcing functions. For glucose and trehalose, we uncover relatively weak preference. In contrast, for fructose and sucrose, preference responses are strong and the effects on feeding pronounced. Specifically, larvae are attracted to, and feeding is stimulated most strongly for, intermediate concentrations of either sugar: Using very high concentrations (4 M) results in weakened preference and suppression of feeding. In contrast to such an optimum function regarding choice and feeding, an asymptotic dose–effect function is found for reinforcement learning: Learning scores reach asymptote at 2 M and remain stable for a 4-M concentration. A similar parametric discrepancy between the reflexive (choice and feeding) and reinforcing function is also seen for sodium chloride (Niewalda T, Singhal S, Fiala A, Saumweber T, Wegener S, Gerber B, in preparation). We discuss whether these discrepancies are based either on inhibition from high-osmolarity sensors upon specifically the reflexive pathways or whether different sensory pathways, with different effective dose–response characteristics, may have preferential access to drive either reflex responses or modulatory neurons mediating internal reinforcement, respectively.

Key words: Drosophila, feeding, gustation, learning, olfaction, sugar

Accepted 19 April 2008


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