Automatic detection and analysis of animal behaviour

Description Even simple animals, like fruitflies or worms, can make complex decisions, for instance when they interact with predators, possible sex mates or explore food sources. Ethomics is a new discipline of neuroscience, attempting automatic and high-throughput analysis of animal behaviour, and investigating correlations and links to explore how genes drive behaviour. The purpose of [...]

Ethanol and sleep

Background Ethanol is an evolutionary conserved neuromodulating agent, effective in mammals as it is in invertebrates. The fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster responds to ethanol with all the stereotypical signs that are also observed in humans: including euphoria, sedation, habituation and addiction (for a review see 1). Genetic predisposition in humans is accounted to be responsible for [...]

Sleep and learning: a genetic approach. The allnighter gene.

Background Sleep is a vital activity, whose function still remain mysterious despite centuries of scientific research. All animals that have been tested so far, from nematodes to humans, possess and require the fundamental characteristics of sleep. In Drosophila, like in humans, sleep deprivation leads to a remarkable decrease in intellectual performance, learning and memory; chronic [...]