Measuring the repertoire of age-related behavioral changes in Drosophila melanogaster

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Katherine E Overman, Emory University; Daniel M Choi, Princeton University; Kawai Leung, Emory University; Joshua W Shaevitz, Princeton University; Gordon Berman, Emory University
• Language: English
• Date: 2022-02-01
• Publisher: PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE
• Publication Version: Final Published Version
• Copyright Statement: © 2022 Overman et al
• License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Final Published Version (URL): http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009867
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: PLOS COMPUTATIONAL BIOLOGY
• Volume: 18
• Issue: 2
• Start Page: e1009867
• End Page: e1009867
• Grant/Funding Information: K.E.O., and K.L., and G.J.B. were supported by NIMH (R01 MH115831-01), the Human Frontier Science Program (RGY0076/2018), and a Cottrell Scholar Award, a program of the Research Corporation for Science Advancement (25999). K.E.O. was supported by the NSF Physics of Living Systems Student Research Network (PHY-1806833). Experimental work and J.W.S and D.M.C. were supported by NIH R01 GM098090 and in part by the National Science Foundation, through the Center for the Physics of Biological Function (PHY-1734030). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
• Keywords: LONG; Biochemistry & Molecular Biology; Biochemical Research Methods; LONGEVITY; Science & Technology; Life Sciences & Biomedicine; LIFE-SPAN; MUTANT; LOCOMOTOR-ACTIVITY; INSIGHTS; PREDICTABILITY; Mathematical & Computational Biology
• Research Categories: Physics, Molecular; Biology, Molecular

Abstract

Aging affects almost all aspects of an organism—its morphology, its physiology, its behavior. Isolating which biological mechanisms are regulating these changes, however, has proven difficult, potentially due to our inability to characterize the full repertoire of an animal’s behavior across the lifespan. Using data from fruit flies (D. melanogaster) we measure the full repertoire of behaviors as a function of age. We observe a sexually dimorphic pattern of changes in the behavioral repertoire during aging. Although the stereotypy of the behaviors and the complexity of the repertoire overall remains relatively unchanged, we find evidence that the observed alterations in behavior can be explained by changing the fly’s overall energy budget, suggesting potential connections between metabolism, aging, and behavior.