Fruit Flies Choose Food Over Sex When Deprived of Both

Scientists identified competing neural pathways that control flies' decision making. View in browser

Image credits: Alexlky/Shutterstock Fruit Flies Choose Food Over Sex When Deprived of Both Scientists identified competing neural pathways that control flies' decision making. Karen Kwon, Contributor August 18, 2021                                                                                                                                                                           (Inside Science) -- Life is about making one choice after another. Should you have Italian for dinner or Vietnamese? Should you go camping with your friends this weekend or chill at home with your cat? Many choices aren't a matter of life or death, but sometimes they are, as was the case for the fruit flies that neuroscientist Carolina Rezaval and her team studied. When the team gave male fruit flies a choice between food and sex after denying them both for 24 hours, the flies chose sugar water over a potential mate. The team also discovered competing neural pathways that direct the flies to either eat or mate, based on how hungry they are... Read more Copyright 2021 American Institute of Physics. Inside Science syndicates its articles, columns, blogs and videos to news organizations. To initiate syndication, or request permission to republish our content (on a one-time or continuing basis), please contact Inside Science at insidescience@aip.org. News organizations seeking permission to republish Inside Science content must fully credit Inside Science as the original source of the content, include the author byline, and republish the original, unaltered form (excluding content titles, headlines, or sub-headlines). The reprint format can be seen here. Copyright conditions and usage terms are subject to change at any time without consent or any type of prior notice. To unsubscribe from all future mailings from Inside Science please click here. To manage your email subscriptions please click here.

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