Giorgio F. Gilestro, Imperial College London: A tale of sleepless flies. How Drosophila changes what we know about sleep

Our laboratory studies the neurobiology of behavior in Drosophila melanogaster, with a strong emphasis on sleep. In particular, we are trying to uncover the still mysterious function(s) of sleep, using a systems neuroscience approach. The talk will present some of the most recent data of the lab as paradigmatic of what flies can teach us about sleep: using a machine-learning based video-tracking technology, we conducted a detailed high-throughput analysis of sleep in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, coupled with a life-long chronic and specific sleep restriction. Our results show that some wild-type flies are virtually sleepless in baseline conditions and that complete, forced sleep restriction is not necessarily a lethal treatment in wild-type Drosophila melanogaster. We also show that circadian drive, and not homeostatic regulation, is the main contributor to sleep pressure in flies. We propose a three-partite model framework of sleep function, according to which, total sleep accounts for three components: a vital component, a useful component, and an accessory component.