Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have discovered primitive emotion like behavior in the fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster).
The scientists found two new things:
1) A mutation that eliminates the dopamine receptor causes the flies with that mutation to react to and be hypersensitive to a Pavolvian stimulation. Flies without the mutation react but do not become hypersensitive,
2) Flies with the mutation are unable to learn the relationship between a specific odor and an electrical shock. Flies that do not have the mutation learn and remember rapidly.
These discoveries have multiple implications for the treatment of ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder).
It is well established that dopamine has a relationship in ADHD. Present therapies rely on giving the patient dopamine. The new discovery may imply the same mutation as a cause of ADHD.
The assumption that a person with ADHD has a learning disability is destroyed by the work at CalTech. There is no causal relationship between ADHD and learning.
The display of emotion by a fly does not imply that flies exhibit the panorama of externally or internally produced gyrations and cavorting that we all deem to call emotion.
Now some genius that isn’t will say that people are not flies. The fly has about 20,000 neurons in its brain and the human has millions. However, dopamine is dopamine, no matter the animal it that is the source. Structure determines function is a precept of chemistry that has yet to be disproven. The structure of the dopamine receptor in both species is the same. The fruit fly has been used to elucidate chemical and biochemical structure and function for almost a century because the relationship between that fly and humans is very genetically similar.
This information will be read by a few thousand who understand the relationship. Suppose the information were to be used politically by a fundamentalist with a following or by a radical ecologist who is bent on freeing the flies from their torture and bondage. It is a good thing that biochemistry has become so esoteric that most people cannot understand it.
Neuron, Volume 64, Issue 4, 522-536, 25 November 2009
doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2009.09.031
Two Different Forms of Arousal in Drosophila Are Oppositely Regulated by the Dopamine D1 Receptor Ortholog DopR via Distinct Neural Circuits
Tim Lebestky1, 3, Jung-Sook C. Chang1, 3, Heiko Dankert1, 2, Lihi Zelnik 2, Young-Cho Kim 4, Kyung-An Han 4, Fred W. Wolf 5, Pietro Perona 2 and David J. Anderson1, 3.
1 Division of Biology 216-76, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
2 Division of Engineering and Applied Science 136-93, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
3 Howard Hughes Medical Institute, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
4 Department of Biology, The Huck Institute, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA
5 Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center, University of California, San Francisco, Emeryville, CA 94608, USA
http://www.cell.com/neuron/abstract/S0896-6273(09)00742-9
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