Fruitflies that have structurally similar brain hemispheres forget within a matter of hours.
Abstract
The asymmetrical positioning of neural structures on the left or right side of the brain in vertebrates1,2 and in invertebrates3,4 may be correlated with brain laterality, which is associated with cognitive skills5. But until now this has not been illustrated experimentally. Here we describe an asymmetrically positioned brain structure in the fruitfly Drosophila and find that the small proportion of wild-type flies that have symmetrical brains with two such structures lack a normal long-term memory, although their short-term memory is intact. Our results indicate that brain asymmetry may be required for generating or retrieving long-term memory.
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Supplementary information
41586_2004_BF427605a_MOESM1_ESM.pdf
Supplementary methods and figure showing CS brain anatomy as revealed by anti-Fas II staining of frontal paraffin sections. (PDF 279 kb)
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Pascual, A., Huang, KL., Neveu, J. et al. Brain asymmetry and long-term memory. Nature 427, 605–606 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/427605a
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/427605a
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