Abstract
BackgroundInsects have been among the most widely used model systems for studying the control of locomotion by nervous systems. In Drosophila, we implemented a simple test for locomotion: in Buridan's paradigm, flies walk back and forth between two inaccessible visual targets [1]. Until today, the lack of easily accessible tools for tracking the fly position and analyzing its trajectory has probably contributed to the slow acceptance of Buridan's paradigm.Methodology/Principal FindingsWe present here a package of open source software designed to track a single animal walking in a homogenous environment (Buritrack) and to analyze its trajectory. The Centroid Trajectory Analysis (CeTrAn) software is coded in the open source statistics project R. It extracts eleven metrics and includes correlation analyses and a Principal Components Analysis (PCA). It was designed to be easily customized to personal requirements. In combination with inexpensive hardware, these tools can readily be used for teaching and research purposes. We demonstrate the capabilities of our package by measuring the locomotor behavior of adult Drosophila melanogaster (whose wings were clipped), either in the presence or in the absence of visual targets, and comparing the latter to different computer-generated data. The analysis of the trajectories confirms that flies are centrophobic and shows that inaccessible visual targets can alter the orientation of the flies without changing their overall patterns of activity.Conclusions/SignificanceUsing computer generated data, the analysis software was tested, and chance values for some metrics (as well as chance value for their correlation) were set. Our results prompt the hypothesis that fixation behavior is observed only if negative phototaxis can overcome the propensity of the flies to avoid the center of the platform. Together with our companion paper, we provide new tools to promote Open Science as well as the collection and analysis of digital behavioral data.
Highlights
Controlling behavior is probably the most fundamental and ancestral function of nervous systems
Using the analysis software we provide, our package is sufficient to describe a fly’s locomotor activity in Buridan’s paradigm [7,1]
Video tracking accuracy We used readily available hardware (Fig. 1) and a custom-coded open source free software package (Fig. 2) in order to study the locomotion of fruit flies which were rendered flightless by clipping their wings
Summary
Controlling behavior is probably the most fundamental and ancestral function of nervous systems. Ctrax and Flytrax provide full, open source access to their code. Together with our companion paper [6], we add to this arsenal of open source software tools for tracking larval and adult insect locomotion. We provide here a straightforward method for online tracking of the centroid of a single adult fly without requiring the storage of any video information. Using the analysis software we provide, our package is sufficient to describe a fly’s locomotor activity in Buridan’s paradigm [7,1]. In Drosophila, we implemented a simple test for locomotion: in Buridan’s paradigm, flies walk back and forth between two inaccessible visual targets [1]. The lack of accessible tools for tracking the fly position and analyzing its trajectory has probably contributed to the slow acceptance of Buridan’s paradigm
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