Dopamine –
A substance with many messages
In the
insect brain, dopamine-releasing nerve cells are crucial to the formation of
both punished and rewarded memories
July 18,
2012
Children
quickly learn to avoid negative situations and seek positive ones. But humans
are not the only species capable of remembering positive and negative events;
even the small brain of a fruit fly has this capacity. Dopamine-containing
nerve cells connected with the mushroom body of the fly brain play a role here.
Scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Martinsried have
identified four different types of such nerve cells.