Automated monitoring and analysis of social behavior in Drosophila

Dankert, Heiko and Wang, Liming and Hoopfer, Eric D. and Anderson, David J. and Perona, Pietro (2009) Automated monitoring and analysis of social behavior in Drosophila. Nature Methods, 6 (4). pp. 297-303. ISSN 1548-7091. http://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20090601-135542919

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	Archive (ZIP) (Supplementary Software Source code of "Caltech Automated Drosophila Aggression-Courtship Behavioral Repertoire Analysis (CADABRA)") - Supplemental Material See Usage Policy. 3904Kb
	Video (QuickTime) (Supplementary Video 1 High-resolution movie clip of a lunge (top view), complementing Figure 3a) - Supplemental Material See Usage Policy. 47Kb
	Video (QuickTime) (Supplementary Video 2 Movie clip of body and wing tracking during a lunge) - Supplemental Material See Usage Policy. 251Kb
	Video (QuickTime) (Supplementary Video 3 High-resolution movie clip of tussling (top view), complementing Figure 3b) - Supplemental Material See Usage Policy. 141Kb
	Video (QuickTime) (Supplementary Video 4 High-resolution movie clip of a wing threat (side view), complementing Figure 3c) - Supplemental Material See Usage Policy. 86Kb
	Video (QuickTime) (Supplementary Video 5 Movie clip of body and wing tracking during a wing threat) - Supplemental Material See Usage Policy. 564Kb
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	Video (QuickTime) (Supplementary Video 8 High-resolution movie clip of copulation (side view), complementing Figure 3d) - Supplemental Material See Usage Policy. 762Kb
	Video (QuickTime) (Supplementary Video 9 High-resolution movie clip of copulation with wing extension and circling (top view), complementing Figure 3d) - Supplemental Material See Usage Policy. 259Kb
	Video (QuickTime) (Supplementary Video 10 High-resolution movie clip of chasing (top view), complementing Figure 3f) - Supplemental Material See Usage Policy. 742Kb

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Abstract

We introduce a method based on machine vision for automatically measuring aggression and courtship in Drosophila melanogaster. The genetic and neural circuit bases of these innate social behaviors are poorly understood. High-throughput behavioral screening in this genetically tractable model organism is a potentially powerful approach, but it is currently very laborious. Our system monitors interacting pairs of flies and computes their location, orientation and wing posture. These features are used for detecting behaviors exhibited during aggression and courtship. Among these, wing threat, lunging and tussling are specific to aggression; circling, wing extension (courtship 'song') and copulation are specific to courtship; locomotion and chasing are common to both. Ethograms may be constructed automatically from these measurements, saving considerable time and effort. This technology should enable large-scale screens for genes and neural circuits controlling courtship and aggression.

Item Type:

Article

Related URLs:

URL	URL Type	Description
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/NMETH.1310	DOI	Article
http://www.nature.com/nmeth/journal/v6/n4/abs/nmeth.1310.html	Publisher	Article

ORCID:

Author	ORCID
Perona, Pietro	0000-0002-7583-5809

Additional Information:

© 2009 Nature Publishing Group. RECEIVED 29 SEPTEMBER 2008; ACCEPTED 4 FEBRUARY 2009; Published online: 8 March 2009 | Corrected online: 22 March 2009. We thank K. Watanabe and A. Hergarden for helping prepare the flies, assays, taking video footage of flies as well as collecting ground-truth data. This work was supported by a National Science Foundation Frontiers in Integrative Biological Research grant to M.J. Dickinson, D.J.A. and E. Isacoff, a National Science Foundation National Institutes of Health grant to P.P. and M.J. Dickinson, and a postdoctoral fellowship of the Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation to H.D. We thank M. Heisenberg for sponsoring H.D. in Germany and for sharing information and data regarding aggression arenas and automated assays.

Errata:

In the version of this article initially published online, an attribution was omitted. The observation that genetic feminization of cholinergic neurons increases aggression was originally reported in abstract form (Y.B. Chan and E.A. Kravitz, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Neurobiology of Drosophila Abstracts, 42, 2005). The error has been corrected for the print, PDF and HTML versions of this article.

Funders:

Funding Agency	Grant Number
NSF	UNSPECIFIED
NIH	UNSPECIFIED
Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation	UNSPECIFIED
Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI)	UNSPECIFIED

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CaltechAUTHORS:20090601-135542919

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http://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20090601-135542919

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ID Code:

14347

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CaltechAUTHORS

Deposited By:

Tony Diaz

Deposited On:

19 Aug 2009 01:33

Last Modified:

29 Sep 2015 23:31

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