Shaping of olfactory responses by taste in a new assay for operant learning in Drosophila melanogaster.

ABSTRACT: Animals are driven to maximize food rewards and adjust their behavior to seek high-quality food and avoid low-quality options. This holds true for Drosophila melanogaster, which approaches food-associated odors and tastes while avoiding aversive ones. Despite its importance for understanding motivation, how voluntary olfactory and gustatory experiences shape fly interactions with these stimuli over time remains unclear. Here, we investigate how stimuli shape volitional behavior using our novel operant learning assay (Open-LA), which tracks individual flies as they enter/exit a region of stimuli self-administration. We analyzed the behaviors flies demonstrated when they control access to an aversive or appetitive odor or taste and analyzed how these behaviors were shaped by experience. As p

SUBMITTER: Hernandez JS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12766575 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature