Referenced in: none

Automatically associated channels: TRP , TRPA , TRPA1

Title: Inducing sleep by remote control facilitates memory consolidation in Drosophila.

Authors: Jeffrey M Donlea, Matthew S Thimgan, Yasuko Suzuki, Laura Gottschalk, Paul J Shaw

Journal, date & volume: Science, 2011 Jun 24 , 332, 1571-6

PubMed link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21700877

Abstract
Sleep is believed to play an important role in memory consolidation. We induced sleep on demand by expressing the temperature-gated nonspecific cation channel Transient receptor potential cation channel (UAS-TrpA1) in neurons, including those with projections to the dorsal fan-shaped body (FB). When the temperature was raised to 31°C, flies entered a quiescent state that meets the criteria for identifying sleep. When sleep was induced for 4 hours after a massed-training protocol for courtship conditioning that is not capable of inducing long-term memory (LTM) by itself, flies develop an LTM. Activating the dorsal FB in the absence of sleep did not result in the formation of LTM after massed training.