Common microbehavioral "footprint" of two distinct classes of conditioned aversion.

ABSTRACT: Avoiding unfavorable situations is a vital skill and a constant task for any animal. Situations can be unfavorable because they feature something that the animal wants to escape from, or because they do not feature something that it seeks to obtain. We investigate whether the microbehavioral mechanisms by which these two classes of aversion come about are shared or distinct. We find that larval Drosophila avoid odors either previously associated with a punishment, or previously associated with the lack of a reward. These two classes of conditioned aversion are found to be strikingly alike at the microbehavioral level. In both cases larvae show more head casts when oriented toward the odor source than when oriented away, and direct fewer of their head casts toward the odor than away

SUBMITTER: Paisios E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5397685 | biostudies-literature | 2017 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature