Thus, while feeding behaviors and their interactions with the state of
the animal provide a technically accessible model to study decision-making and action
selection, the interrelation between the consequences of starvation on motor control, motivation, stress and
the metabolic state of the animal pose a formidable experimental
challenge, in particular in the interpretation of the different phenotypes linked with biogenic amine disruption. Leveraging the
neurogenetic tools in Drosophila, we attempted to understand how starvation influences the animal's decision-making with regard to feeding-related stimuli. Specifically, we investigated the involvement of the OA/TA-system on starvation-dependent modulation of sugar responsiveness and metabolism. We asked whether the OA/TA-system was involved in
the physiological response to starvation or the neuronal changes
following starvation, and whether its neuronal action was peripheral or
central. Our results corroborate and extend the previous findings on the promiscuous effects of these biogenic amines and suggest that both
OA and TA are involved in most of the counterregulatory processes, which occur in parallel.