Analysis of conditioned courtship in dusky-Andante rhythm mutants of Drosophila.

Abstract

IntroductionGenetic connections between learning and rhythmicity were suggested to have been established in a previous study, in part because the dusky Andante (dy And) mutation in Drosophila disrupted both behaviors. dy And, isolated as a slow-clock variant, was reported to cause an approximately fourfold decrement in courtship-suppression conditioning. These effects have been reexamined;the experiments were buttressed by testing the effects of several recently isolated mutations at the dusky locus, along with the original And allele that had been induced there. The reexamination was also prompted by anatomical concerns, certain of which have recently focused on dy-induced decrements in cell size, but only in terms of wing morphology. Another anatomical issue involves the discovery of a neuronal pathway that seems to connect circadian pacemaker cells to a structure in the Drosophila brain that is involved in learning. In observer-blind experiments, however, it was found that neither pacemaker-slowing (Andante.like) dy mutations nor others that cause no rhythm defects produced subnormal conditioned courtship. Moreover, in the adult brain of a slow-clock dy And mutant, no axonal pathway defects were readily discernible and putative pacemaker neurons appeared to be normal in size.

The KRÜPPEL-Like Transcription Factor DATILÓGRAFO Is Required in Specific Cholinergic Neurons for Sexual Receptivity in Drosophila Females

“…For all comparisons of courtship acceptance rate between control and experimental groups, a 2-Proportion Test was performed, and Fisher's exact p test value was used for the determination of significance level between two groups, unless otherwise indicated. CI data were arcsine transformed prior to statistical analysis as previously described [32] and analyzed by one-way ANOVA. The difference in climbing ability in locomotor tests was analyzed by one-way ANOVA.…”

Age-dependent cognitive impairment in a Drosophila Fragile X model and its pharmacological rescue

“…All testing was performed during the relative light phase of day. Male flies were assigned to random groups and blinded training and testing was performed for all assays (Siegel and Hall 1979; Hall 1994; Sokal and Rohlf 1995; van Swinderen and Hall 1995; Villella and Hall 1996; Joiner Ml and Griffith 1997; Kane et al 1997; McBride et al 1999; McBride et al 2005). …”

“…The CIs of tested males were subjected to arcsin square root transformations to approximate normal distributions (Sokal and Rohlf 1995; van Swinderen and Hall 1995; Villella and Hall 1996; Joiner Ml and Griffith 1997; Kamyshev et al 1999; McBride et al 1999; McBride et al 2005). ANOVAs were performed on arcsin transformed data to get critical p-values.…”

Mutation ofDrosophila homerDisrupts Control of Locomotor Activity and Behavioral Plasticity

“…Figure 6 A shows the results of the courtship conditioning assay performed on homer R102 mutant flies and homer ϩ controls. Because it has previously been argued that courtship measurements from such conditioning assays are not normally distributed (Tompkins et al, 1983;van Swinderen and Hall, 1995;Kane et al, 1997;Kamyshev et al, 1999), we present the results of these experiments as raw data instead of means with SEs. For each group, the amount of courtship displayed by each individual fly is plotted, and the median values are denoted.…”