From ESPCI, Paris

will give a seminar entitled :

Regulation of long-term memory by energy metabolism in Drosophila

Information processing is energetically expensive. Evolution has provided sophisticated tissue-specific cellular and molecular engineering to ensure energy is generated in timely fashion so that neurons do not run out of steam when their output is most needed. Failure to comply with energy demand has dire consequences, as exemplified by neuronal dysfunction and death caused by hypoxia or hypoglycemia. The biochemistry of energy metabolism is ancient, predating brains, tissues and possibly cells, so it has been only natural to assume that metabolism is just a platform for the high needs of information processing, in the way computers need a power supply. Accumulating evidence, however, suggest that the relationship between metabolism and brain function may be bidirectional, more complex and more interesting than anticipated.

Our group has a long-standing interest in the processes underlying long-term memory in Drosophila. Over the recent years a series of discoveries unveiled an unexpected regulatory role of energy metabolism in the ‘gating’ of long-term memory, i.e. determining whether mushroom body neurons, the memory center in the insect brain, initiate, or not, long-term memory formation after an olfactory conditioning. The talk will describe this tight interplay between energy metabolism and memory consolidation at the cellular level in mushroom bodies, as well as the neuromodulatory circuit regulating the metabolic state of mushroom body neurons. Finally, I will present our most recent findings about neuron-glia interaction underlying long-term memory.

Relevant publications

Plaçais P.-Y.*, Trannoy S.*, Isabel G.*, Aso Y., Siwanowicz I., Belliart-Guérin G., Vernier P., Birman S., Tanimoto H. and Preat T. Slow oscillations in two pairs of dopaminergic neurons gate long-term memory formation in Drosophila. Nature Neuroscience, 15, 592-599 (2012). *: co-first authors.

Plaçais P.-Y. and Preat T. To favor survival under food shortage, the brain disables costly memory. Science, 339, 440-442 (2013).

Plaçais P.-Y.*, de Tredern E., Scheunemann L., Trannoy S., Goguel V., Han K.-A., Isabel G. and Preat T.* Upregulated energy metabolism in the Drosophila mushroom body is the trigger for long-term memory. Nature Communications, 8, 15510 (2017). *: co-corresponding authors

Scheunemann L., Plaçais P.-Y., Dromard Y., Schwaerzel, M. and Preat T. Dunce phosphodiesterase acts as a checkpoint for Drosophila long-term memory in a pair of serotonergic neurons. Neuron, 98, 350−365 (2018).