Search results for "drosophila"
showing 10 items of 782 documents
A Systematic Nomenclature for the Insect Brain
2014
SummaryDespite the importance of the insect nervous system for functional and developmental neuroscience, descriptions of insect brains have suffered from a lack of uniform nomenclature. Ambiguous definitions of brain regions and fiber bundles have contributed to the variation of names used to describe the same structure. The lack of clearly determined neuropil boundaries has made it difficult to document precise locations of neuronal projections for connectomics study. To address such issues, a consortium of neurobiologists studying arthropod brains, the Insect Brain Name Working Group, has established the present hierarchical nomenclature system, using the brain of Drosophila melanogaster…
FlyMove – a new way to look at development of Drosophila
2003
Development of any organism requires a complex interplay of genes to orchestrate the many movements needed to build up an embryo. Previously, work on Drosophila melanogaster has provided important insights that are often applicable in other systems. But developmental processes, which take place in space and time, are difficult to convey in textbooks. Here, we introduce FlyMove (http://flymove.uni-muenster.de), a new database combining movies, animated schemata, interactive "modules" and pictures that will greatly facilitate the understanding of Drosophila development.
Courtship behaviour of Drosophila melanogaster revisited
2006
0003-3472 doi: DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2006.01.027; Nearly all studies of Drosophila melanogaster courtship have focused exclusively on male behaviour. Female precopulatory behaviour is often relegated to ‘accept' or ‘reject' mating, and how female behaviour interacts with that of males remains largely unknown. Using a video-computing approach, we measured 10 behavioural states and 22 elementary behaviours that occur during the precopulatory phase of Canton-S (Cs) flies. Male and female behaviours were studied under a variety of social conditions. This allowed us to identify which one(s) is relevant to courtship or to general activity. Our analysis showed that the courtship repertoire was no…
A Fly-Inspired Mushroom Bodies Model for Sensory-Motor Control Through Sequence and Subsequence Learning
2016
Classification and sequence learning are relevant capabilities used by living beings to extract complex information from the environment for behavioral control. The insect world is full of examples where the presentation time of specific stimuli shapes the behavioral response. On the basis of previously developed neural models, inspired by Drosophila melanogaster, a new architecture for classification and sequence learning is here presented under the perspective of the Neural Reuse theory. Classification of relevant input stimuli is performed through resonant neurons, activated by the complex dynamics generated in a lattice of recurrent spiking neurons modeling the insect Mushroom Bodies n…
First-order visual interneurons distribute distinct contrast and luminance information across ON and OFF pathways to achieve stable behavior
2022
The accurate processing of contrast is the basis for all visually guided behaviors. Visual scenes with rapidly changing illumination challenge contrast computation because photoreceptor adaptation is not fast enough to compensate for such changes. Yet, human perception of contrast is stable even when the visual environment is quickly changing, suggesting rapid post receptor luminance gain control. Similarly, in the fruit fly Drosophila, such gain control leads to luminance invariant behavior for moving OFF stimuli. Here, we show that behavioral responses to moving ON stimuli also utilize a luminance gain, and that ON-motion guided behavior depends on inputs from three first-order interneuro…
Factors Affecting Male Song Evolution in Drosophila montana
2005
D. montana (a species of the D. virilis group) has spread over the northern hemisphere, populations from different areas showing both genetic and phenotypic divergence. The males of this species produce an elaborate courtship song, which plays a major role both in species recognition and in intraspecific mate choice. The genetic architecture and physical constraints, as well as the importance of the signal for species recognition, set boundaries within which this signal can vary. Within these limits, courtship song parameters may change, depending on the males' physical condition and on the environment they inhabit. Females are likely to affect song evolution by exerting directional selecti…
Desiccation resistance: effect of cuticular hydrocarbons and water content in Drosophila melanogaster adults
2018
Background.The insect cuticle covers the whole body and all appendages and has bi-directionnal selective permeability: it protects against environmental stress and pathogen infection and also helps to reduce water loss. The adult cuticle is often associated with a superficial layer of fatty acid-derived molecules such as waxes and long chain hydrocarbons that prevent rapid dehydration. The waterproofing properties of cuticular hydrocarbons (CHs) depend on their chain length and desaturation number. Drosophila CH biosynthesis involves an enzymatic pathway including several elongase and desaturase enzymes. Methods.The link between desiccation resistance and CH profile remains unclear, so we t…
Nuclear and Cytoplasmic Soluble Proteins Extraction from a Small Quantity of Drosophila’s Whole Larvae and Tissues
2015
The identification and study of protein’s function in several model organisms is carried out using both nuclear and cytoplasmic extracts. For a long time, Drosophila’s embryos have represented the main source for protein extractions, although in the last year, the importance of collecting proteins extracts also from larval tissues has also been understood. Here we report a very simple protocol, improved by a previously developed method, to produce in a single extraction both highly stable nuclear and cytoplasmic protein extracts from a small quantity of whole Drosophila’s larvae or tissues, suitable for biochemical analyses like co-immunoprecipitation.
Búsqueda de compuestos con potencial terapéutico para la enfermedad de Parkinson y estudio de la relación entre la enfermedad de Parkinson y la Diabe…
2022
La enfermedad de Parkinson (EP) es la segunda enfermedad neurodegenerativa más frecuente. Actualmente, la EP no tiene cura, y las terapias existentes solo son capaces de tratar los síntomas de esta enfermedad, pero no de ralentizar o de parar su progresión. Con el objetivo de descubrir nuevos fármacos que pudieran ser útiles para tratar esta enfermedad, hemos realizado un rastreo a gran escala, evaluando los compuestos incluidos en la quimioteca Prestwick (1120 compuestos). Para ello, estudiamos el efecto de estos compuestos sobre la actividad motora en un modelo de la EP en Drosophila basado en la mutación del gen DJ-1beta (ortólogo del gen humano DJ-1, cuya mutación es causante de casos f…
Identificación de nuevas rutas de patogénesis y dianas terapéuticas en la enfermedad de Parkinson mediante el uso de modelos biomédicos
2022
La enfermedad de Parkinson (EP) es la segunda enfermedad neurodegenerativa más común, caracterizada por la pérdida progresiva de neuronas dopaminérgicas en la substantia nigra pars compacta. Esto conduce a una disminución de los niveles de dopamina en el núcleo estriado, causando los síntomas motores típicos de la enfermedad. Entre las principales causas de la neurodegeneración se encuentran el estrés oxidativo (EO) y la disfunción mitocondrial. Aunque la mayoría de los casos de EP son idiopáticos, se ha demostrado que entre el 5 y el 10% de ellos son formas familiares de la enfermedad causadas por mutaciones en determinados genes. Uno de ellos es el gen DJ-1, cuyas mutaciones están asociad…