‘FlyWalker’ Program Tracks Insects’ Steps, Could Advance Parkinson’s Research

They may have wings, but fruit flies (Drosophila) spend plenty of time on their feet. These insects also are a standard animal model for studying neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. Scientists often create fruit flies that contain the same genetic mutations as seen in these disorders to see how the DNA changes affect the insects. But for all the complex genetic tools they employ, the way of measuring the resulting motor defects remains crude: A researcher will knock the flies in a vial down to the bottom with a quick tap, and then wait to see how long it takes for the insects to climb to the top.

According a new report in eLife, a research team at Columbia University in New York has developed a more accurate and sophisticated way to quantify such movement. They first videotape a fly walking, and then use computer software that can spot the individual footpads of the insect and mark when each of these hits the surface. With this data, they can calculate the insects’ walking speed, distance covered and overall gait. In the team’s resulting paper on the program — dubbed “FlyWalker” — the authors looked at sensory-deprived flies and showed that inactivation of sensory neurons in the insects’ legs led to defects in step precision but did not affect coordination between the legs.

For more information, click here to read the full article and view a video of this study.