Temporal pattern of locomotor activity in Drosophila melanogaster |
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Authors: | J-R Martin R Ernst M Heisenberg |
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Institution: | (1) Lehrstuhl für Genetik, Biozentrum, Am Hubland, D-97074 Würzburg, Germany e-mail: jrmartin@biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de Tel.:+49-931-888 4470; Fax:+49-931-888 4452, DE |
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Abstract: | The temporal pattern of locomotor activity of single Drosophila melanogaster flies freely walking in small tubes is described. Locomotor activity monitored by a light gate has a characteristic time-course
that depends upon age and the environmental conditions. Several methods are applied to assess the complexity of the temporal
pattern. The pattern varies according to sex, genotype, age and environmental conditions (food; light). Activity occurs clustered
in bouts. The intrinsic bout structure is quantified by four parameters: number of light gate passages (counts) per bout,
duration of a bout, pause between two successive bouts and mean bout period. In addition, the distribution of the periods
between light-gate crossings (inter-count intervals) as function of inter-count interval duration reveals a power law, suggesting
that the overall distribution of episodes of activity and inactivity has a fractal structure. In the dark without food, the
fractal dimension which represents a measure of the complexity of the pattern is sex, genotype and age specific. Fractality
is abolished by additional sensory stimulation (food; light). We propose that time-course, bout structure and fractal dimension
of the temporal pattern of locomotor activity describe different aspects of the fly's central pattern generator for locomotion
and its motivational control.
Accepted: 10 October 1998 |
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Keywords: | Locomotor activity Time series analysis Bout structure Fractal structure Aging |
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