Sleep and navigation in Drosophila
1 MPINB
Sleep across species is controlled through a homeostatic process which measures both, the time spent awake as well as the time spent sleeping. Sleep control circuits in the fly have been linked to neurons in a central brain area important for navigation and memory. Identifying cellular correlates of sleep homeostasis in behaving fruit flies has however proven difficult. We have developed a number of methods for characterizing sleep behavior at high resolution as well as for two-photon calcium imaging in the brain of flies navigating in virtual reality over multiple days. Using these methods, we describe the dynamics of different populations of neurons and glia during navigation, sleep, feeding, and spatial learning. Together, these experiments identify correlates for homeostatic behavior in identified cells and circuits in the fly brain.