Olfactory-avoidance habituation in Drosophila melanogaster

Abstract

Habituation is a form of sensory filtering in response to prolonged or repeated stimuli in the environment [Harris, 1943; Thompson and Spencer, 1966; Christoffersen, 1997; Rankin et al., 2009], It provides biological organisms with a means of ignoring non-salient aspects of the local environment in order to selectively focus on stimuli that are potentially more relevant e.g. those associated with danger or a food source. Though habituation is one of the simplest form of memory, it is likely an important building block for more complex forms of learning [Fabiani et al., 2006; Rankin et al., 2009].