Slowly getting the sample size going. As of now, it seems aPKC is either not needed in steering motor neurons b1 and b3, or that knocking aPKC out in only one of them is not sufficient to have an effect on operant self-learning. Shown is the first 2min test period after 8min of training, all three groups seem to show learning, at least at this stage:

It looks like panneuronal downregulation of the foraging gene using the elav-Gal4 driver line impairs self-learning in the flight simulator.

Now that we have established that the plasticity underlying self-learning is located somewhere in the steering motor neurons of the ventral nerve cord, the next question is: which of the neurons are involved. To this end I have now started to knock-out aPKC in either B1 neurons or in B3 neurons. The muscles innervated by these motor neurons are an agonist/antagonist pair and serve to advance/delay the turning point of the wing, leading to a larger or smaller, respectively, wing stroke amplitude. Asymmetry in the activity of these neurons leads to yaw torque – which is the behavior we condition. In the first two weeks, I noticed that all three groups (B1- knock-out, B3 knock-out and genetic controls) seem to fly reasonably well. So far, it doesn’t seem like there are any striking differences between the lines, but it is still early days and about three times more animals are needed before one can draw any firm conclusions:

For all experiments 30 or more flies were introduced to the T-Maze.

Results for red light

Results for yellow light

Results for red light

Results for yellow light

I tested more wtb, this time with the switch mode protocol. Here are the results: