V-055
Study of anxiety-like behavioral performance in subject with overgeneralization of learning
Agustina Belen Pivato1, Mario Rafael Pagani1
  1. Universidad de Buenos Aires—Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Facultad de Medicina, Instituto de Fisiología y Biofísica Bernardo Houssay (IFIBIO)-Houssay, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Presenting Author:
Agustina Belen Pivato
abpivato@gmail.com
Learning and memory generalization is a cognitive function that allows an individual to apply information learned in a context, to a similar but not identical one. Generalization is reduced in intellectual disability and overgeneralization is frequently associated with psychiatric disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder, phobias and other anxiety disorders. However, there is no direct evidence to support causal relationships in this association. In Drosophila anxiety-like behavior can be studied by “wall following” (WAFO) behavior in an open field arena. Recently we described that some genetic manipulations of cAMP signaling pathways promote overgeneralization of learning. Therefore, to study its potential to consequently promote anxiety-like behavior we used genotypes with phosphodiesterase-dependent overgeneralization, previously identified in our laboratory, and control lines. In contrast to our expectations, preliminary results showed that these genotypes exhibit centrophilia when compared to controls. However, these results are consistent with previous studies where stressed flies showed centrophilia, which in this case was paradoxically resistant to diazepam. Additional study on this matter will be informative of the relation between overgeneralization and anxiety-like behavior as well as centrophilia and diazepam.