Dopaminergic rules of engagement for memory in Drosophila

•Distinct dopamine neurons assign different valences to external stimuli.•Memory is compartmentalized within the mushroom body.•Parallel and additive processing occurs between compartments.•Internal state affects dopamine dynamics, enhancing response to reinforcers.•Dopamine activation parameters and internal state affect memory for drugs of abuse.

Dopamine is associated with a variety of conserved responses across species including locomotion, sleep, food consumption, aggression, courtship, addiction and several forms of appetitive and aversive memory. Historically, dopamine has been most prominently associated with dynamics underlying reward, punishment, or salience. Recent emerging evidence from Drosophila supports a role in all of these functions, as well as additional roles in the interplay between external sensation and internal states and forgetting of the very memories dopamine helped encode. We discuss how cell-specific resolution and manipulation are elucidating the rules of dopamine's involvement in encoding valence and memory.

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