Inducing Sleep by Remote Control Facilitates Memory Consolidation in Drosophila

• DOI: 10.1126/science.1202249
• Publication Date: 2011-06-25T11:40:35Z
• Authors: Jeffrey M. Donlea; Matthew S. Thimgan; Yasuko Suzuki; Laura Gottschalk; Paul J. Shaw
• Keywords: Sleep; Memory Formation; Consolidation; Long-term memory

Sleep is believed to play an important role in memory consolidation. We induced sleep on demand by expressing the temperature-gated nonspecific cation channel Transient receptor potential (UAS-TrpA1) neurons, including those with projections dorsal fan-shaped body (FB). When temperature was raised 31°C, flies entered a quiescent state that meets criteria for identifying sleep. 4 hours after massed-training protocol courtship conditioning not capable of inducing long-term (LTM) itself, develop LTM. Activating FB absence did result formation LTM massed training.