Learning How a Fruit Fly Forgets

There are three stages to memory: acquisition, storage, and retrieval. But distinguishing which brain structures are involved in each stage has been very difficult. In their Perspective, [Waddell and Quinn][1] discuss new findings showing that synaptic output from structures in the fruit fly brain called mushroom bodies is required for memory recall but not for its acquisition and storage ([ McGuire et al .][2]). [1]: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/293/5533/1271 [2]: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/293/5533/1330