Such centralization of related brain functions is an economical design that avoids the repetition of similar circuit motifs.Īnimals tend to associate good and bad things with certain visual scenes, smells and other kinds of sensory information. Thus, our results suggest that distinct sensory memories are processed in a common brain center. Furthermore, distinct yet partially overlapping subsets of mushroom body intrinsic neurons are required for visual and olfactory memories. We found that the same subsets of dopamine neurons drive formation of both sensory memories. These assays share critical features, such as reinforcing stimuli (sugar reward and electric shock punishment), and allow direct comparison of the cellular requirements for visual and olfactory memories. We established appetitive and aversive visual learning assays for Drosophila that are comparable to the widely used olfactory learning assays. It is unclear, however, how distinct sensory memories are processed in the brain. In nature, animals form memories associating reward or punishment with stimuli from different sensory modalities, such as smells and colors.
