Dataset Information

Reward foraging task and model-based analysis reveal how fruit flies learn value of available options.

ABSTRACT: Foraging animals have to evaluate, compare and select food patches in order to increase their fitness. Understanding what drives foraging decisions requires careful manipulation of the value of alternative options while monitoring animals choices. Value-based decision-making tasks in combination with formal learning models have provided both an experimental and theoretical framework to study foraging decisions in lab settings. While these approaches were successfully used in the past to understand what drives choices in mammals, very little work has been done on fruit flies. This is despite the fact that fruit flies have served as model organism for many complex behavioural paradigms. To fill this gap we developed a single-animal, trial-based decision making task, where freely walking flies experienced optogenetic sugar-receptor neuron stimulation. We controlled the value of available options by manipulating the probabilities of optogenetic stimulation. We show that flies integrate reward history of chosen options and forget value of unchosen options. We further discover that flies assign higher values to rewards experienced early in the behavioural session, consistent with formal reinforcement learning models. Finally, we also show that the probabilistic rewards affect walking trajectories of flies, suggesting that accumulated value is controlling the navigation vector of flies in a graded fashion. These findings establish the fruit fly as a model organism to explore the genetic and circuit basis of reward foraging decisions.

SUBMITTER: Seidenbecher SE

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7531776 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Reward foraging task and model-based analysis reveal how fruit flies learn value of available options.

Seidenbecher Sophie E SE Sanders Joshua I JI von Philipsborn Anne C AC Kvitsiani Duda D

PloS one 20201002 10

Foraging animals have to evaluate, compare and select food patches in order to increase their fitness. Understanding what drives foraging decisions requires careful manipulation of the value of alternative options while monitoring animals choices. Value-based decision-making tasks in combination with formal learning models have provided both an experimental and theoretical framework to study foraging decisions in lab settings. While these approaches were successfully used in the past to understa ...[more]

PMID: 33007023

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Project description:BackgroundThe olive fruit fly (Bactrocera oleae) is the most destructive pest of the olive cultivation worldwide causing significant production losses and olive fruit impoverishment, as its larvae feed exclusively on the olive fruit. Reproductive and sexual behavior, as well as host-plant recognition of the fly, are highly dependent on its chemosensory system. Therefore, exploring the role of genes that play a critical role in olfaction, could reveal potential molecular targets that determine species-specific features on chemical communication and could be used to impair sexual behavior.ResultsIn this study we identified the gene that encodes the conserved olfactory co-receptor Orco (Odorant receptor co-receptor), which interacts with all divergent insect odorant receptors, and investigated how disruption of its expression affects chemoreception. We initially searched the expression profile of Bo-Orco in both sexes during sexual maturation, as well as pre- and post-mating communication by relative quantitative real time PCR (qRT-PCR) analysis suggesting that Bo-Orco was abundantly expressed in sexually mature adults. We further investigated the functional role of Bo-Orco in mating and oviposition behavior via transient gene silencing that was performed through in vivo dsRNA hemolymph injections in sexually mature flies 7 days after eclosion. Orco-knockdown phenotypes in both sexes showed reduced copulation rates in mating competitiveness tests, possibly through impaired olfactory-mediated detection of sex pheromone. In addition, oviposition was significantly inhibited in dsRNA-Orco injected females in a post-mating behavior test.ConclusionsOur results demonstrate that Orco plays a crucial role in the reproductive behavior of the olive fruit fly, since pre- and post-mating processes were affected. This is the first report in the olive fruit fly that links the chemosensory pathway with the mating behavior and the reproductive potential at a molecular basis, rendering this gene a potential target for the improvement of the olive fruit fly population control techniques.

Dataset Information

Reward foraging task and model-based analysis reveal how fruit flies learn value of available options.

Publications

Reward foraging task and model-based analysis reveal how fruit flies learn value of available options.

Similar Datasets

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