The studies they do, lol.
It seems even flies get friend zoned and depressed. 🙂
This study was done by having male flies rejected as potential mating partners by female flies. The male flies then stop trying to initiate mating at all having stored the memory as trauma.
But seriously, interesting what the researchers found.
This study found that without light for a couple of days the flies seemed to lose the memory of the trauma and start to re-initiate mating attempts again.
It seems light is needed to maintain a traumatic memory.
And that darkness can help ‘unlearn’ the memory.
Potentially opening doors for future treatment of trauma by way of working with circadian rhythms and timed light exposure.
And also reinforcing the power of light to help with correct memory functioning.