Effects of Levetiracetam on Seizures in Shaking-Sensitive Drosophila Melanogaster

Overview

Levetiracetam, otherwise known as Keppra, is an anti-seizure medication. It is used to prevent seizures in people who have epilepsy. To test how Keppra affects seizure severity and duration, we used shaking-sensitive fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) as a simple representation of an epileptic neurological system. If the fruit flies ingest the medication, then their seizures should decrease in severity and duration because it is an anti-seizure medication. We separated the flies into six different vials. Three vials of normal food and three vials of Keppra were mixed in with their food. Then, we let the flies be exposed to the medication for seven days. Finally, after seven days, we separated the flies into individual vials without anesthetizing them and induced seizures using a vortexer. We recorded their movement right after the vortexer and uploaded the video into the software Imagej, where we analyzed the flies' movement. We found that there is no significant difference in the severity of the flies' seizures (T-test = 0.11); however, we have reason to believe that with more test subjects, we could see a significant difference in the severity and duration of the seizures (T-test = 0.1). Our results also showed that the flies that consumed Keppra had less twitching after their seizures, meaning that they recovered from them faster (T-test = 0.01). In conclusion, we found that Keppra did not significantly affect the severity or duration of the seizures, but it did affect how fast the flies got over the seizures and back to normal locomotor behavior.