SPOKANE, Wash. — A scientist with University of Washington (UW) Medicine built tiny treadmills to monitor how the flies move in an unpredictable and complex world.
According to lead author and recent physiology and biophysics Ph.D. graduate, Brandon Pratt, walking animals (including insects and people) have to recognize and quickly deal with unexpected changes while walking. If they don’t, they risk injuring themselves, especially by falling.
Pratt built miniature treadmills using cheap parts, based on a prototype developed by UW mechanical alumnus, Max Mauer.
Associate Professor John Tuthill used his lab to study the fruit flies. His lab studies proprioception, which is the awareness of the body’s position, movement and force.
Tuthill said illness, injury and other factors can impede the ability of people and animals to coordinate their bodies. Those factors can make easy tasks, like grabbing a glass of water or walking a few feet, harder.
In past research, scientists have found that treadmills can reignite animals’ desire to walk after disruptions to their nervous systems.
When they implement two separate belts, side-by-side, researchers can monitor the coordination between the legs adapts when the legs on the left side move at a different speed than on the right.
It’s helpful in evaluating stroke patients.
In the fruit fly research, experts noted that the flies were able to adjust and have very little problems navigating both kinds of treadmills, even when they silenced the neurons underlying proprioception.
“The middle legs are ideally positioned to stably pivot the body of the fly about its center of mass, like rowing a boat from its center,” the researchers explained.The scientists noted that, “These insights illustrate how treadmills fill an important gap between free-walking and tethered preparations for investigating neural and behavioral mechanisms for fly locomotion.”
In this experiment, researchers clocked the highest ever walking speed for fruit flies at 50 millimeters per second.
Su-Yee Lee and Grant Chou contributed to the project.
COPYRIGHT 2024 BY KXLY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS MATERIAL MAY NOT BE PUBLISHED, BROADCAST, REWRITTEN OR REDISTRIBUTED.
