UW Med: Fruit-fly size treadmills accelerate studies of insect walking

Alice C. Gray

Miniature treadmills are advancing studies on how fruit flies’ nervous systems control their ability to walk. 

Engineered by scientists at the University of Washington School of Medicine, their treadmill design has been made freely available to other scientists exploring insect biology.

In addition to recording how the flies walk and run normally, the UW Medicine researchers are also interested in how the flies navigate unexpected changes underfoot. 

If animals and people can't detect and respond to surface changes encountered while walking, they risk falling. 

To study this phenomenon, scientists in John Tuthill's physiology and biophysics lab used a split-belt, fly-size treadmill, and saw the flies correct their walking style to accommodate tracks moving at different speeds underfoot.

The scientists also wanted to learn if and how flies adapt if they have difficulty sensing their bodies moving in space. 

After they made genetic modifications to certain sensory nerve cells in the fly brain, the scientists found that the flies could still walk, perhaps because other nerve cells were involved in controlling movement or because the brain had adapted to the genetic modifications. 

However, the genetically altered flies did have a different sort of gait.

During their treadmill studies, the researchers also happened to clock the fastest running speed yet reported for fruit flies: 50 mm/sec.

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