Connecting sleep deficits among young fruit flies to disruption in mating later in life

Thursday, April 17, 2014 - 14:30 in Biology & Nature

Mom always said you need your sleep, and it turns out, she was right. According to a new study, the lack of sleep in young fruit flies profoundly diminishes their ability to do one thing they do really, really well -- make more flies. To address whether sleep loss in young flies affects development of courtship circuits, the team investigated a group of neurons implicated in courtship. One particular subset of those neurons was smaller in sleep-deprived animals than normal flies, suggesting a possible mechanism for how sleep deprivation can lead to altered courting behavior.

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