Role of dopaminergic neurons in operant behaviour

Positive Control: Gr28bd-G4, TrpA1-G4

Parameters: Light: intensity (500 Lux side, 1000 Lux bottom); frequency = 20Hz; Delay = 1 ms; Duration = 9.9 ms; volts = 6.4

Red lines: completed

mb025b: not selected against tubby

The Tmaze Experiments : Screen results as on 22-7-18

Yellow 1 (Positive Control): Gr28bd-G4, TrpA1-G4

Parameters: Light: intensity (500 Lux side, 1000 Lux bottom); frequency = 20Hz; Delay = 1 ms; Duration = 9.9 ms; volts = 6.4

The T-Maze experiments : Middle analysis and Correlation plot

The mean ratio of the flies that stay in the middle during the experiments.

Correlation plot between the mean ratio of the flies that stay in the middle versus the Weighted PIs

Slope = 0.0053
Intercept = 0.240
R square value = -0.03834

contrary to the expectations, there seems to be no correlation .

Tmaze Exploratory analysis : Middle Flies

plotting the mean ratio of flies which stay in the middle during experiment.

Yellow 1 (Positive Control):  Gr28bd-G4, TrpA1-G4

Parameters:
Light: intensity (500 Lux side, 1000 Lux bottom)

frequency = 20Hz

Delay = 1 ms

Duration = 9.9 ms

volts = 6.4

T-Maze experiments : screen results as on 25-06-2018

Yellow 1 (Positive Control):  Gr28bd-G4, TrpA1-G4

Parameters:
Light: intensity (500 Lux side, 1000 Lux bottom)

frequency = 20Hz

Delay = 1 ms

Duration = 9.9 ms

volts = 6.4

Initial screen results

Yellow 1 (Positive Control):  Gr28bd-G4, TrpA1-G4

Light: intensity (500 Lux side, 1000 Lux bottom), frequency (20Hz)

Tmaze experiments initial results

the first graph shows Bar plot of Mean and standard deviation of PIs for Genetic control (n=9) and Positive control (n=5).
The second graph shows weighted mean and weighted standard deviation of the same.

Weighted mean is calculated by multiplying the weights (total number of flies in that experiment/total number of flies in all the experiments) with the PI for that experiment, and taking the sum thereafter for all the experiments.

Update: Looking for the DA & OA neurons involved in phototactic flexibility

These are the newst results of my screen. There are some interesting candidates, but it’s still too soon to conclued something.

Update of the DA screening. New experiments are in red (25°C) and blue (32°C).

Experiment finished.

Looking for the DA & OA neurons involved in phototactic flexibility

After using TH-G4 and TDC2-G4 to prove that dopamine and octopamine are involved in phototactic switch after wing clipping, I decided to find which neurons in particular are playing this particular role. Therefore, I started a few small screens with the GAL4s and LexAs available for these groups of neurons. I crossed the drivers to shibire to assess their role. For every graph blue means RT, and red means 32°C.

TH subsets-GAL4

Dopaminergic neurons -GAL4

New experiments: transparent T-maze

I have started doing experiments with the transparent T-maze, but I have some problems. The results are really weird: I have obtained negative phototaxis for both flies with intact and clipped wings (phototaxis is more negative for flies with intact wings????).

I did only 9 experiments, because I don’t really know how to run them and I need advice. I am going to explain how I was doing this experiments until now:

– First of all, I put the flies in the entrance tube of the T-maze (upper part) and I cover the T-maze with a black clothing (I want the flies to be adapted to the darkness, like in my last experiments with the opaque T-maze). They are in this situation for 10min.

– After that I push the flies into the elevator. I don’t know if I should let them stay there for 1 minute (like I was doing before with the opaque T-maze, or push them to the bottom of the T-maze to let them make their decision between darkness or light without an adaptation time.

I think that if they stay in the elevator for 1 minute, they will be again under light conditions, and that’s not good for the experiment. I could cover again the T-maze with the black clothing during this minute (that’s what I was doing until now, but with bad results).

– Then I let the flies decide for 30 seconds as always.

So if you have any suggestions, I will be glad to hear them :)