Effects of Bacopa monnieri supplementation on the learning and short-term memory retention of sleep-deprived Drosophila melanogaster

Abstract

Aversive phototaxic suppression (APS) is a behavioral assay in which photopositive fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) are trained to avoid light using quinine as an aversive stimulus. This conditioned behavior has been found to be impaired by sleep deprivation in D. melanogaster. This study tested whether supplementation with Bacopa monnieri can counter this impairment. Three sublethal and effective concentrations of B. monnieri supplement were given to test groups of non-sleep-deprived (slp-) and sleep-deprived (slp+) flies subjected to the APS assay. The extent of learning and short-term memory (STM) retention were based on average pass rates (APR) defined as the number of trials that each fly exhibited a photonegative response before and after conditioning. Results showed that B. monnieri supplement improved the APR of both slp- and slp+ flies as compared to the unsupplemented flies. These effects were found to be dose-dependent from the low to the mid-level (4.62x10-4g/mL to 4.62x10-3g/mL) concentrations of the supplement on D. melanogaster learning and STM retention.