Neural correlates of visual attention in Drosophila melanogaster

The genetic model organism Drosophila melanogaster has been used to study mechanisms of learning and memory for thirty years. In contrast, selective attention has only very recently been addressed in this model, in part because most memory paradigms were olfactory while attention is best studied with visual paradigms. Nevertheless, flies do seem to display attention-like properties. Neural correlates of selective attention in flies were identified by recording brain activity during responses to competing visual stimuli. Brain responses displayed characteristic properties of attention such as salience effects, expectancy, and alternation dynamics. These attention-like processes appeared to be disrupted in short-term memory mutants, or when synaptic output from key brain structures or systems was transiently silenced. By exploiting Drosophila molecular-genetic tools within brain recording paradigms, we hope to investigate the basic architecture supporting visual perception and attention-like processes in a small model brain