The role of Drosophila mushroom body signaling in olfactory memory.

The mushroom bodies of the Drosophila brain are important for olfactory learning and memory. To investigate the requirement for mushroom body signaling during the different phases of memory processing, we transiently inactivated neurotransmission through this region of the brain by expressing a temperature-sensitive allele of the shibire dynamin guanosine triphosphatase, which is required for synaptic transmission. Inactivation of mushroom body signaling through alpha/beta neurons during different phases of memory processing revealed a requirement for mushroom body signaling during memory retrieval, but not during acquisition or consolidation.