Genetic dissection of consolidated memory in Drosophila

Abstract

Behavioral and pharmacological experiments in many animal species have suggested that memory is consolidated from an initial, disruptable form into a long-lasting, stable form within a few hours after training. We combined these traditional approaches with genetic analyses in Drosophila to show that consolidated memory of conditioned (learned) odor avoidance 1 day after extended training consisted of two genetically distinct, functionally independent memory components: anesthesia-resistant memory (ARM) and long-term memory (LTM). ARM decayed away within 4 days, was resistant to hypothermic disruption, was insensitive to the protein synthesis inhibitor cycloheximide (CXM), and was disrupted by the radish single-gene mutation. LTM showed no appreciable decay over 7 days, was sensitive to CXM, and was not disrupted by the radish mutation.