Individual and Automatic Training and Assay of Learned Navigational Behaviors in Drosophila larva

Previous studies of olfactory learning in Drosophila larva show larva can learn through classical conditioning. While behavioral responses of trained larva have been studied, neural responses of freely moving, trained larva are unexplored. Previous training experiments involve presenting larva with an odor and reinforcer in a small number of training trials, then allowing larva to make a decision in the presence of odor without reinforcer. We develop a training chamber which involves rigorous training. The larva is presented with an odor plus reinforcer in more trials over longer period of time, which could increase the output of correct decisions in trained larva. The Y maze training chamber allows larva to make a decision, turn around, and go back to Y intersection to quickly make another decision. This allows us to study large number of decisions in short times. We will study neural responses of trained versus untrained larva, while larva is making decisions, which can help us to connect stimulus, behavioral responses, and neural activity. We will present results which demonstrate the training chamber is unbiased when no stimuli are present, and initial results for olfactory training of individual larva.