Trial-and-error in the fruitfly

摘要

Courtship behaviour in Drosophila has become a leading model for defining the neural circuits and molecular mechanisms that underlie complex innate behaviours. Young male flies initially chase any females in the vicinity but soon learn to avoid those perfumed with the male pheromone cis-vaccenyl acetate (cVA), which indicates lost virginity. Krystyna Keleman etal. show that this learning is not classic Pavlovian conditioning, through arbitrary association of cVA with rejection.