The first experiment tested the activation of KCs with simultaneous ablation of pPAM which showed the following results:

Green: UAS-ChR2-XXL; LexAop-rpr x 58E02-LexA; H24-Gal4

Lightgrey: UAS-ChR2-XXL; LexAop-rpr x H24-Gal4

Darkgrey: UAS-ChR2-XXL x 58E02-LexA; H24-Gal4

The next experiment was conducted with the split-Gal4 line MB054B (DAN-f1/DAN-g1) and showed the following:

With the focus on dopaminergic neurons, I conducted two experiments with two different driver lines to see how the naive gustatory behavior in Drosophila larvae is affected.

The first cross I tested was R58E02-Gal4 x UAS-ChR2-XXL, which gave me the following results:

As seen in the figures, there was no effect under blue light.

For the second experiment I crossed TH-Gal4 x UAS-ChR2-XXL with these results:

With this experiment, there was an effect on gustatory behavior as there is a clear significant difference between the experimental group and the control group.

The following plots show the results after I increased the salt concentration from 1,5M to 2,5M. It shows that the difference between the control groups and experimental group are not significant anymore.

The first plot of each group show my results from the week before, and the ones beneath show the final results for red and blue light, after filling the sample size up to 20n.

Red light:

for comparison, this plot shows the control groups for the remaining 8n I had left separately:

Blue light:

The following figures show the results of the joystick test using the same test line as before. In addition, the flies were fed not only ATR but also 3IY (3-iodo-L-tyrosine), an inhibitor of dopamine synthesis. This was done to determine whether the previously observed effect was due to dopamine alone and could therefore be suppressed by the inhibitor, or whether other factors also influenced the flies’ behaviour in the joystick test.