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Modeling Age-related Insomnia in Drosophila melanogaster: Visual Pathway Requirement and Homeostatic Decline

CSEF · 2026 Behavioral & Social Sciences (Senior Division)

Ruilin Zhu

Overview

As people age, their sleep quantity and quality decline, and insomnia becomes more prevalent, particularly in individuals aged 60 and older. The mechanisms underlying age-related insomnia are not well understood. Fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) are a powerful model organism for neuroscience and aging research and may provide valuable insights. However, age-dependent changes in sleep behavior have not been consistently established in fruit flies. In this study, I compared sleep behaviors between one-week-old fruit flies (equivalent to young teenagers in humans) and five-week-old flies (equivalent to humans >60 years old). My primary experimental tool was the Drosophila Activity Monitoring System (DAMSystem, TriKinetics), which uses infrared beams to detect and quantify fly movement over time. Sleep quantity and quality were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively based on the system's readouts. Results from multiple rounds of experiments consistently showed that in the wild-type (w1118) strain, sleep quantity and quality declined significantly in aged flies compared with young flies. Fruit flies carrying null mutations in either the rh7 or cry genes also exhibited age-related difference in sleep behavior, although the magnitude of changes varied. In contrast, flies lacking visual structures due to the glass gene mutation (gl60j) did not display age-related sleep decline. Moreover, young wild-type flies were highly sensitive to light-flashing intervention, sleeping minimally during daytime flashing periods and exhibiting robust compensatory increases in nighttime sleep. Aged wild-type flies showed attenuated responses to the same intervention, with less dramatic reductions in daytime sleep and weaker nighttime compensation. In conclusion, age-related insomnia can be reliably modeled in fruit flies. My findings demonstrate that GLASS-dependent visual pathways are required for normal sleep quality. Additionally, aged flies exhibit impaired sleep homeostasis. Together, these results suggest that visual pathway degeneration and homeostatic decline may contribute to age-related sleep deterioration.

Competition history

  • CSEF 2026 Behavioral & Social Sciences (Senior Division) · Entry S-03-11

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