Immediate perception of a reward is distinct from the reward's long-term salience

John P. Mcginnis (1, 2) , Huoqing Jiang (1) , Moutaz Ali Agha (3) , Consuelo Perez Sanchez (1) , Jeff Lange (1) , Zulin Yu (1) , Frederic Marion-Poll (3, 4) , Kausik Si (2)

1 Stowers Institute for Medical Research
2 Kansas University School of Medicine
3 EGCE - Évolution, génomes, comportement et écologie
4 AgroParisTech

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 sugarsL- and D-arabinoseDrosophila 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 concentrationfeatures relevant for long-term memoryremains unknown.

Domaines: Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]

John P. Mcginnis, Huoqing Jiang, Moutaz Ali Agha, Consuelo Perez Sanchez, Jeff Lange, et al.. Immediate perception of a reward is distinct from the reward's long-term salience. eLife, 2016, 5, pp.e22283. ⟨10.7554/eLife.22283⟩. ⟨hal-01495115⟩