Statistical Modeling of Sleep Properties in Drosophila Melanogaster

• Activity Number: 193
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Monday, August 10, 2015 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Biometrics Section
• Author(s): Gayla Olbricht* and Courtney Fiebelman and Shelby McNeil and Luyang Wang and Sahitya Injamuri and V.A. Samaranayake and Matthew S. Thimgan
• Companies: Missouri University of Science and Technology and Missouri University of Science and Technology and Missouri University of Science and Technology and Missouri University of Science and Technology and Missouri University of Science and Technology and Missouri University of Science and Technology and Missouri University of Science and Technology
• Keywords: Transition Probability ; Weibull ; Survival Analysis ; Sleep ; Drosophila

Abstract

Sleep is a vital process, yet many aspects sleep and wake cycle regulation are not fully understood. In mammals, sleep is governed by two primary interacting processes (C and S). Process C is a circadian rhythm process that gates the timing of sleep over a 24 hour cycle, whereas Process S involves the build-up of sleep pressure with increased wakefulness. The fruitfly, Drosophila melanogaster, is used as a model organism to better understand these processes since Process C can be disrupted through genetic mutation. In this work, the sleep or wake status is recorded every minute over the entire life span of each fly. Wild-type flies with normal circadian rhythms are compared to two different circadian rhythm mutants, cyc01 and isogenized per01 flies. We propose statistical models based on transition probabilities and the distribution of sleep durations to characterize sleep patterns of flies. Sleep properties derived from these models are compared between fly types to better understand differences between flies with and without Process C. The relationship between the sleep properties and survival time are also investigated to identify potential indicators for aberrant sleep.