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Behavioural neuroscience

Out of sight, but not out of mind

Nature volume 453, pages 1193–1194 (2008)Cite this article

Flies are cleverer than previously thought. They can remember their original destination even if distracted en route by another landmark. This behaviour depends on a specific group of neurons.

You are walking down a street to meet a friend at the end of it. You are early; so to kill time, you go into a café. After this brief detour, you continue on your way to meet your friend. While in the café, your original destination was out of sight, yet your brain held that goal in memory. Many such distractions occur during our daily tasks, yet in most cases we can remember and complete the original task. On page 1244 of this issue, Neuser et al.1 demonstrate that the fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster can perform a similar task, and elucidate some of the mechanisms that the fly brain uses for this type of memory.

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Figure 1: Undeterred by the detour.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Seth M. Tomchik is in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas 77030, USA,

    Seth M. Tomchik

  2. Ronald L. Davis is in the Departments of Molecular and Cellular Biology, and of Psychiatry and Behavioural Sciences, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas 77030, USA. rdavis@bcm.tmc.edu,

    Ronald L. Davis

Authors
  1. Seth M. Tomchik
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  2. Ronald L. Davis
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Tomchik, S., Davis, R. Out of sight, but not out of mind. Nature 453, 1193–1194 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/4531192a

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