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Neuroanatomy

Brain asymmetry and long-term memory

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Fruitflies that have structurally similar brain hemispheres forget within a matter of hours.

Abstract

The asymmetrical positioning of neural structures on the left or right side of the brain in vertebrates1,2 and in invertebrates3,4 may be correlated with brain laterality, which is associated with cognitive skills5. But until now this has not been illustrated experimentally. Here we describe an asymmetrically positioned brain structure in the fruitfly Drosophila and find that the small proportion of wild-type flies that have symmetrical brains with two such structures lack a normal long-term memory, although their short-term memory is intact. Our results indicate that brain asymmetry may be required for generating or retrieving long-term memory.

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Figure 1: A structural asymmetry in the Drosophila brain.
Figure 2: An asymmetrical brain is required to form or retrieve long-term memory in Drosophila.

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Author notes

  1. Alberto Pascual

    Present address: Laboratorio de Investigaciones Biomédicas, Hospitales Universitarios Virgen del Rocío, 41013, Sevilla, Spain

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Développement, Evolution, Plasticité du Système Nerveux, CNRS, Gif-sur-Yvette, 91190, France

    Alberto Pascual, Kai-Lian Huang, Julie Neveu & Thomas Préat

Authors
  1. Alberto Pascual
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  2. Kai-Lian Huang
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  3. Julie Neveu
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  4. Thomas Préat
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Thomas Préat.

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Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

41586_2004_BF427605a_MOESM1_ESM.pdf

Supplementary methods and figure showing CS brain anatomy as revealed by anti-Fas II staining of frontal paraffin sections. (PDF 279 kb)

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Pascual, A., Huang, KL., Neveu, J. et al. Brain asymmetry and long-term memory. Nature 427, 605–606 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/427605a

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