Rohrbough Jeffrey, O'Dowd Diane K, Baines Richard A, Broadie Kendal
Department of Biological Sciences, Vanderbilt University, VU Station B, Box 35-1634, Nashville, Tennessee 37235-1634, USA.
J Neurobiol. 2003 Jan;54(1):254-71. doi: 10.1002/neu.10171.
Genetic malleability and amenability to behavioral assays make Drosophila an attractive model for dissecting the molecular mechanisms of complex behaviors, such as learning and memory. At a cellular level, Drosophila has contributed a wealth of information on the mechanisms regulating membrane excitability and synapse formation, function, and plasticity. Until recently, however, these studies have relied almost exclusively on analyses of the peripheral neuromuscular junction, with a smaller body of work on neurons grown in primary culture. These experimental systems are, by themselves, clearly inadequate for assessing neuronal function at the many levels necessary for an understanding of behavioral regulation. The pressing need is for access to physiologically relevant neuronal circuits as they develop and are modified throughout life. In the past few years, progress has been made in developing experimental approaches to examine functional properties of identified populations of Drosophila central neurons, both in cell culture and in vivo. This review focuses on these exciting developments, which promise to rapidly expand the frontiers of functional cellular neurobiology studies in Drosophila. We discuss here the technical advances that have begun to reveal the excitability and synaptic transmission properties of central neurons in flies, and discuss how these studies promise to substantially increase our understanding of neuronal mechanisms underlying behavioral plasticity.
遗传可塑性以及对行为分析的适应性，使得果蝇成为剖析诸如学习和记忆等复杂行为分子机制的一个有吸引力的模型。在细胞水平上，果蝇为调节膜兴奋性以及突触形成、功能和可塑性的机制提供了丰富信息。然而直到最近，这些研究几乎完全依赖于对周围神经肌肉接头的分析，对原代培养神经元的研究较少。就其本身而言，这些实验系统显然不足以在理解行为调节所需的多个层面上评估神经元功能。迫切需要的是能够在其发育过程中以及一生中被修饰时，接触到生理相关的神经元回路。在过去几年里，在开发用于研究果蝇中枢神经元特定群体功能特性的实验方法方面取得了进展，这些方法可用于细胞培养和体内研究。本综述聚焦于这些令人兴奋的进展，它们有望迅速拓展果蝇功能性细胞神经生物学研究的前沿领域。我们在此讨论已开始揭示果蝇中枢神经元兴奋性和突触传递特性的技术进展，并探讨这些研究如何有望大幅增进我们对行为可塑性背后神经元机制的理解。
