Pavlovian Conditioning of Larval : An Illustrated, Multilingual, Hands-On Manual for Odor-Taste Associative Learning in Maggots.

Larval offer a study case for behavioral neurogenetics that is simple enough to be experimentally tractable, yet complex enough to be worth the effort. We provide a detailed, hands-on manual for Pavlovian odor-reward learning in these animals. Given the versatility of for genetic analyses, combined with the evolutionarily shared genetic heritage with humans, the paradigm has utility not only in behavioral neurogenetics and experimental psychology, but for translational biomedicine as well.

Odor-taste learning assays in Drosophila larvae.

The Drosophila larva is an emerging model for studies in behavioral neurogenetics because of its simplicity in terms of cell number. Despite this simplicity, basic features of neuronal organization and key behavior faculties are shared with adult flies and with mammals. Here, we describe a pavlovian-type learning assay in fruit fly larvae.