Open‐field arena boundary is a primary object of exploration for Drosophila

Brain and Behavior

Benjamin Soibam⁴  Monica Mann²  Lingzhi Liu²  Jessica Tran²  Milena Lobaina³  Yuan Yuan Kang³  Gemunu H. Gunaratne⁵  Scott Pletcher¹ 

[1]University of Michigan Geriatrics Center, Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 49108

[2]Department of Biology and Biochemistry, University of Houston, Houston, Texas 77204

[3]Department of Natural Sciences, University of Houston Downtown, Houston, Texas 77002

[4]Department of Computer Science, University of Houston, Houston, Texas 77204

[5]Department of Physics, University of Houston, Houston, Texas 77204

关键词: Anxiety;    centrophobicity;    Drosophila;    exploratory activity;    thigmotaxis;   

DOI  :  10.1002/brb3.36

来源: Wiley

【 摘 要 】

Abstract

Drosophila adults, when placed into a novel open-field arena, initially exhibit an elevated level of activity followed by a reduced stable level of spontaneous activity and spend a majority of time near the arena edge, executing motions along the walls. In order to determine the environmental features that are responsible for the initial high activity and wall-following behavior exhibited during exploration, we examined wild-type and visually impaired mutants in arenas with different vertical surfaces. These experiments support the conclusion that the wall-following behavior of Drosophila is best characterized by a preference for the arena boundary, and not thigmotaxis or centrophobicity. In circular arenas, Drosophila mostly move in trajectories with low turn angles. Since the boundary preference could derive from highly linear trajectories, we further developed a simulation program to model the effects of turn angle on the boundary preference. In an hourglass-shaped arena with convex-angled walls that forced a straight versus wall-following choice, the simulation with constrained turn angles predicted general movement across a central gap, whereas Drosophila tend to follow the wall. Hence, low turn angled movement does not drive the boundary preference. Lastly, visually impaired Drosophila demonstrate a defect in attenuation of the elevated initial activity. Interestingly, the visually impaired w¹¹¹⁸ activity decay defect can be rescued by increasing the contrast of the arena's edge, suggesting that the activity decay relies on visual detection of the boundary. The arena boundary is, therefore, a primary object of exploration for Drosophila.

【 授权许可】

CC BY-NC   
© 2012 The Authors. MicrobiologyOpen published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.