Behavioral and Transcriptional Effects of Short or Prolonged Fasting on the Memory Performances of Lymnaea stagnalis.

Introduction: The Garcia effect, a solid learning paradigm, was used to investigate the molecular and behavioral effects induced by different lengths of fasting on the cognitive functions in the pond snail Lymnaea stagnalis, a valid model system.

Methods: Three experimental groups were used: moderately hungry snails, food-deprived for 1 day (D1 snails), severely hungry snails (D5 snails), fasting for 5 days, and satiated snails with ad libitum access to food (AL snails). In the Garcia effect, a single pairing of an appetitive stimulus with a heat stressor results in a learned taste-specific negative hedonic shift.