Selection for conditionability in Drosophila melanogaster

Successful bidirectional selective breeding of Drosophila melanogaster for excitatory conditionability is reported, using the reliable measures of individual differences (first described by Holliday & Hirsch, 1984, 1986a, 1986b) to test 1,324 animals. Bidirectional selective breeding for good and poor conditioning has produced, respectively, one population in which the percentage of animals showing good conditioning has increased over 25 generations from 19% to 77% and another in which it has decreased over 23 generations to 0%-4%. No increase in a measure of sensitization induced by an unconditioned stimulus (the central excitatory state) accompanied the increase in the percentage of good conditioners in the population selected for good conditioning, whose level of conditioned responding exceeds that of the sensitization measure.