Versatile method to measure locomotion in adult Drosophila

Many studies require the ability to quantify locomotor behavior over time. The list of tracking softwares and their capabilities are constantly growing. At the 2019 CanFly Conference, we presented preliminary results from an investigation of the effects of expressing polyglutamine repeats in fly muscles on longevity, locomotion, and protein aggregation. Numerous requests have been received regarding our protocol to measure locomotion and how to use the FlyTracker MatLab software. This report describes a versatile locomotion measuring device and custom MatLab scripts for the extraction, analysis, and compilation of FlyTracker data in a format compatible with spreadsheet softwares. The measurement and analysis of multiple genotypes of both sexes across age demonstrates that this method yields reproducible results that confirm that normal aging is associated with a progressive decline in locomotion as indicated by increased immobility and reduced velocity.

Automated summary

This article introduces a versatile locomotion measuring device and custom MatLab scripts for data extraction, analysis, and compilation. The study demonstrates that normal aging is associated with a progressive decline in locomotion over time.