Faculty
Science/Western Institute of Neuroscience
Supervisor Name
Dr. Anne Simon
Keywords
Response to isolation, dopamine, neuroligin3, social environment, drosophila melanogaster
Description
Social behavior is exhibited based on a response to other individuals and involves the integration of external cues from surrounding organisms. A complete lack of interaction with others can profoundly affect social behavior in a variety of species. An example of the effect of social isolation can be seen in the fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) when observing the social behavior of social space, which is the preferred distance between neighbours. Isolated flies have increased social space and settle further apart from one another compared to flies that are group-housed.
What modulates this behavioral response to the social environment in fruit flies? Research from the Simon lab has shown that the autism candidate gene neuroligin3 (nlg3) is required for a response to isolation in the fruit fly, and dopamine is suspected to be upstream of nlg3 in a pathway controlling the response to the social environment.
My project takes a pharmacological approach to investigate the effect that dopamine has on the behavioral response to isolation in fruit flies. I also seek to clarify the interaction between dopamine and nlg3 to further elucidate the pathway involved in responding to the social environment.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Dr. Anne Simon, Ryley Yost, Judi Kurbaj, the Western USRI program, and the Western Institute for Neuroscience for their support.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Document Type
Poster
Included in
The Effect of Dopamine on the Behavioral Response to Isolation in Drosophila melanogaster
Social behavior is exhibited based on a response to other individuals and involves the integration of external cues from surrounding organisms. A complete lack of interaction with others can profoundly affect social behavior in a variety of species. An example of the effect of social isolation can be seen in the fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) when observing the social behavior of social space, which is the preferred distance between neighbours. Isolated flies have increased social space and settle further apart from one another compared to flies that are group-housed.
What modulates this behavioral response to the social environment in fruit flies? Research from the Simon lab has shown that the autism candidate gene neuroligin3 (nlg3) is required for a response to isolation in the fruit fly, and dopamine is suspected to be upstream of nlg3 in a pathway controlling the response to the social environment.
My project takes a pharmacological approach to investigate the effect that dopamine has on the behavioral response to isolation in fruit flies. I also seek to clarify the interaction between dopamine and nlg3 to further elucidate the pathway involved in responding to the social environment.