McGinnis, J.P., Jiang, H., Agha, M.A., Sanchez, C.P., Lange, J., Yu, Z., Marion-Poll, F., Si, K. (2016). Immediate perception of a reward is distinct from the reward's long-term salience.  eLife 5(): e22283.

FBrf0234590

Research paper

Reward perception guides all aspects of animal behavior. However, the relationship between the perceived value of a reward, the latent value of a reward, and the behavioral response remains unclear. Here we report that, given a choice between two sweet and chemically similar sugars-L- and D-arabinose-Drosophila melanogaster prefers D- over L- arabinose, but forms long-term memories of L-arabinose more reliably. Behavioral assays indicate that L-arabinose-generated memories require sugar receptor Gr43a, and calcium imaging and electrophysiological recordings indicate that L- and D-arabinose differentially activate Gr43a-expressing neurons. We posit that the immediate valence of a reward is not always predictive of the long-term reinforcement value of that reward, and that a subset of sugar-sensing neurons may generate distinct representations of similar sugars, allowing for rapid assessment of the salient features of various sugar rewards and generation of reward-specific behaviors. However, how sensory neurons communicate information about L-arabinose quality and concentration-features relevant for long-term memory-remains unknown.

PMC5243026 (PMC) (EuropePMC)