Voltage-sensitive calcium channels (VSCC) mediate the entry of calcium ions into excitable cells and are also involved in a variety of calcium-dependent processes, including muscle contraction, neurotransmitter release, gene expression, cell motility, cell division and cell death (By similarity). Probably encodes a dihydropyridine-insensitive current. Vital for survival to adulthood.

(UniProt, P91645)

Males court abnormally with poor mating success and aberrant courtship song, which includes pulses of tone that are polycyclic, rather than monocyclic or tricyclic, within wild-type pulses and have increased amplitude. Some cac pulses, however, are quasi-normal in their cycle numbers (Wheeler et al., 1989); these, as well as many of the polycyclic pulses, have essentially normal intra-pulse frequencies; other cac pulses exhibit anomalous modulations, and these show multiple peaks in the intra-pulse spectra, unlike wild type. Mating success of wingless mutant males is still worse than that of wingless wild-type males, which is correlated with genetic separability of song abnormalities from deficit in mating performance. Female courtship appears to be unaffected by cac; but general locomotor activity of males or females is subnormal. cac is recessive for generally abnormal behavior and for courtship song defects in tra/tra flies (Kulkarni, Hall, and Schilcher).

Higher than normal light-intensity thresholds needed for optomotor or phototactic responses (Heisenberg and Gotz, 1975). More specifically, high-acuity optomotor responses (ability to respond to relatively narrow moving stripes) relatively normal, but high-sensitivity flies (ability to respond to moving stimuli in dim light conditions) are impaired, hence, a "night-blind" phenotype (Heisenberg). In "slow phototaxis/Y-tube" tests (using ordinary white fluorescent light), mutant adults were extremely subnormal and in fact preferred the dark-arm of the Y (Kulkarni and Hall, 1987). Light-on and light-off transient spikes of electroretinogram reduced in amplitude, possibly absent (Heisenberg, 1979; Homyk and Pye, 1989). Weak orientation to spots in Y-maze test (Bulthoff, 1982). nbA mutation may define an essential gene, because nbA3/l(1)11Aa1 heterozygotes lack ERG transients (Homyk and Pye) and are severely defective in phototaxis (Kulkarni and Hall, 1987).