2016-09-11 13:00:00
In recent decades, brain imaging technologies have provided an enormous amount of data in laboratory animals and urban humans, which have enabled spectacular progress in understanding the mechanisms of brain function and the causes of neurodegenerative diseases. However, these technologies suffer from serious limitations. One of the most important is that the subjects studied need to be totally or partially immobilized, which prevents the study of brain activity in situations in which it would be very interesting to do so, such as during social interaction in freedom.
Thus, an important challenge for this type of research consists in the development of technologies capable of allowing the study of neuronal functioning while the subject moves and interacts normally. This had been achieved in 2008 with mice to which other researchers had attached a mini portable microscope to their head, weighing only 1.1 grams. However, the method had many limitations, so a group of scientists from the University of California decided to try it with even smaller animals: laboratory flies.
Using surgical techniques, they trephined and opened a window in the “skull” of a fly, removing the protective cuticle and sealing the hole with clear, biologically inert silicone. The window thus opened allowed the exposure of the entire so-called protobrain, which includes fundamental regions of the insect nervous system.
With such a sophisticated observation system, the scientists studied the brain activity of flies in different situations. When the flies were exposed to ethanol vapor, they activated neurons related to smell. When the flies began courtship, they found that other neurons related to sexual activity were activated. These experiments prove the robustness of this system for acquiring data on brain activity and mental state in freely moving flies and may allow the discovery of new neural functions that could not previously be studied in immobilized animals.
More information on Jorge Laborda’s Blog: Visualization of the mental state of a fly
Reference:
Dhruv Grover et al. (2016). Flyception: imaging brain activity in freely walking fruit flies.
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