2022 Fiscal Year Annual Research Report
Mapping working memory networks in the Drosophila brain
| Project/Area Number |
18K06496
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| Research Institution | Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Medical Science |
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Principal Investigator |
堀内 純二郎 公益財団法人東京都医学総合研究所, 脳・神経科学研究分野, 主席研究員 (80392364)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2018-04-01 – 2023-03-31
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| Keywords | Learning. / Memory / Drosophila / Aging |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
Memories of our life experiences and lessons we’ve learned are stored in our brains in memory networks. We are studying how these networks form and how they are degraded upon aging using Drosophila melanogaster. In the learning and memory assay we use, we expose flies to two odors. During exposure to the first odor, flies are simultaneously subjected to painful electrical shocks. Flies are later exposed to the second odor in the absence of shocks. Flies learn to associate the first odor with pain and subsequently avoid this odor, whereas they approach the second odor, which becomes associated with relief from pain. These associations are formed and stored in a brain structure known as the mushroom bodies.
This past year, I studied the nature of forgetting in Drosophila. While forgetting can be studied in many organisms, it has been unclear precisely how forgetting occurs in the brain. Are memories simply lost, or are there brain mechanisms that actively suppress memories over time? We determined that forgetting does not result from simple loss of memories, but instead are caused by an increase in uncertainty regarding a memory.
This past year, I also collaborated with Shintaro Naganos and helped prepare a manuscript demonstrating that approach memory to the non-shocked odor depends on plasticity in the antennal lobes. Current models propose that memories are stored in the mushroom bodies, but this manuscript demonstrates that a large component of relief memory may be formed in a different brain structure.
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