Mathematical Modeling of Sleep and Wake in Drosophila Melanogaster
Department
Biological Sciences
Major
Biological Sciences
Research Advisor
Thimgan, Matthew S.
Advisor's Department
Biological Sciences
Abstract
The regulation of how and why we fall asleep and wake up are not yet understood. We used mathematical modeling of sleep to uncover underlying patterns that may help to understand how and why sleep transitions occur in normal flies. We recorded activity from male and female wild-type flies and circadian rhythm mutants, cycle (cyc01). Flies were allowed to adapt to constant darkness (DD) for two days and activity was recorded for four days. After sleep and wake was determined, we applied exponential and linear models to determine the relationships between prior bouts to the current bout lengths. We found that exponential models better described this relationship compared to linear models. Importantly, we determined that a fly’s bout duration data needed to be standardized by its own average bout length to correct for individual differences in bout length. Our initial results suggest a more complicated relationship between sleep and wake bouts.
Biography
Sahitya Injamuri was born in India and moved to the United States when she was four. She is a junior in Biological Sciences at Missouri University of Science and Technology. She is also the president of Helix, the university’s chapter of the American Society of Microbiology. She is also a member of the Phi Sigma society, the biological sciences honors society. After graduation, Sahitya plans to go to graduate school.
Research Category
Sciences
Presentation Type
Poster Presentation
Document Type
Poster
Location
Upper Atrium/Hall
Presentation Date
16 Apr 2014, 9:00 am - 11:45 am
Mathematical Modeling of Sleep and Wake in Drosophila Melanogaster
Upper Atrium/Hall
The regulation of how and why we fall asleep and wake up are not yet understood. We used mathematical modeling of sleep to uncover underlying patterns that may help to understand how and why sleep transitions occur in normal flies. We recorded activity from male and female wild-type flies and circadian rhythm mutants, cycle (cyc01). Flies were allowed to adapt to constant darkness (DD) for two days and activity was recorded for four days. After sleep and wake was determined, we applied exponential and linear models to determine the relationships between prior bouts to the current bout lengths. We found that exponential models better described this relationship compared to linear models. Importantly, we determined that a fly’s bout duration data needed to be standardized by its own average bout length to correct for individual differences in bout length. Our initial results suggest a more complicated relationship between sleep and wake bouts.
