Measuring the repertoire of age-related behavioral changes in Drosophila melanogaster

TL;DR

This study comprehensively characterizes age-related behavioral changes in Drosophila melanogaster, revealing sex differences and linking behavioral alterations to metabolic energy budget shifts during aging.

Contribution

It introduces a method to quantify the full behavioral repertoire across the lifespan of fruit flies, highlighting sex-specific patterns and metabolic influences on aging.

Findings

Behavioral repertoire remains complex and stereotypy is stable with age.

Sexual dimorphism in behavioral changes during aging.

Behavioral changes correlate with shifts in energy budget.

Abstract

Aging affects almost all aspects of an organism -- its morphology, its physiology, its behavior. Isolating which biological mechanisms are regulating these changes, however, has proven difficult, potentially due to our inability to characterize the full repertoire of an animal's behavior across the lifespan. Using data from fruit flies (D. melanogaster) we measure the full repertoire of behaviors as a function of age. We observe a sexually dimorphic pattern of changes in the behavioral repertoire during aging. Although the stereotypy of the behaviors and the complexity of the repertoire overall remains relatively unchanged, we find evidence that the observed alterations in behavior can be explained by changing the fly's overall energy budget, suggesting potential connections between metabolism, aging, and behavior.