Habituation and dishabituation of a cleaning reflex in normal and mutant Drosophila

Abstract

Upon tactile stimulation of its thoracic bristle(s), Drosophila cleans with a patterned set of leg movements the field covered by the stimulated bristles. We demonstrate that this cleaning reflex undergoes habituation and dishabituation. Repeated monotonous stimulation of the bristles by controlled air puffs leads to decrement, and finally to disappearance, of leg response. Spontaneous recovery of the response takes place in a time-dependent manner. Restoration of response can also be obtained by application of a high-frequency stimulus directed to other bristles. A mutant, rut, which is defective in learning and in adenylate cyclase activity, can habituate and dishabituate, but habituation is abnormally short-lived. As opposed to both nonassociative and associative learning paradigms used in Drosophila to date, the cleaning reflex lends itself to some aspects of cellular analysis, since single sensory neurons that mediate the input and motor neurons that mediate the behavioral output are identifiable. The modified reflex should therefore be useful in establishing the effects of single gene mutations that affect behavioral plasticity on the development and properties of identified neurons that contribute to discrete modifiable behaviors.