Drosophila is widely used for the dissection of genetic and neuronal mechanisms of behavior. Recently, flies have emerged as a model for investigating the regulation of feeding and sleep. Although typically studied in isolation, increasing evidence points to a fundamental connection between these behaviors. Thus, a system for measuring sleep and feeding simultaneously in a single integrated system is important for interpreting behavioral shifts of either state. Here, we describe the construction and use of the Activity Recording Capillary Feeder or CAFE (ARC), a machine-vision (automated image tracking)-based system for the integrated measurement of sleep and feeding in individual Drosophila. Flies feed on liquid food from a microcapillary, and consumption is measured by tracking the liquid meniscus over time. Sleep measurements are obtained from positional tracking of individual animals, and arousal threshold can be determined by vibrational stimulus response. Using this system, a single computer and experimenter can track diverse behaviors from up to 60 individual flies in a single integrated system. The ARC is efficiently assembled with minimal training, and each experiment can be run for up to ∼7 d, with a total setup and breakdown time of ∼2 h.

中文翻译：

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同时测量个体果蝇的睡眠和进食。

果蝇广泛用于解剖遗传和神经元行为机制。最近，苍蝇已经成为研究喂养和睡眠调节的模型。尽管通常是单独进行研究，但越来越多的证据表明这些行为之间存在根本联系。因此，用于在单个集成系统中同时测量睡眠和进食的系统对于解释任一状态的行为转移都很重要。在这里，我们描述了活动记录毛细管进料器或CAFE（ARC）（一种基于机器视觉（自动图像跟踪）的系统）的结构和使用，该系统用于综合测量个体果蝇的睡眠和进食。苍蝇从微毛细管中获取液体食物，并通过追踪随时间变化的液体弯月面来测量食用量。睡眠测量值是从各个动物的位置跟踪中获得的，唤醒阈值可以通过振动刺激响应来确定。使用此系统，一台计算机和实验人员就可以在一个集成系统中跟踪多达60个个体苍蝇的各种行为。ARC经过最少的培训即可有效组装，每个实验可以运行约7 d，总设置和故障时间约为2 h。