Genes and learning in Drosophila

To survive, every animal needs appropriate behavior patterns. Evolution has provided simple creatures with the necessary behavioral repertoire in the form o f fixed action patterns — programmed reactions to external stimuli, coded by the genes and ‘hard-wired’ into the nervous system. More complex organisms require more versatility to cope with unusual situations and to occupy new niches. They need to learn. For this they also rely on genes to specify components of the neural machinery that makes learning and memory possible. By studying the learning behavior of normal and mutant flies it may be possible to isolate and identify some of these mechanisms.