New system tracks and zaps flies with lasers to change behaviors

Aurich Lawson

Despite their small size and relatively compact nervous system, the standard lab fruit fly Drosophila manages to engage in some fairly sophisticated behaviors, including a courtship ritual. Researchers have also trained them to associate an irrelevant event with an unpleasant experience, causing the fruit flies to form lasting aversions to the event.

Now, researchers have managed to bring all that together and mix it with computing, molecular biology, and lasers. The end result is a system that tracks the flies in real time and targets laser pulses to specific body parts. It can be used to create averse associations so strong that male flies will flee an otherwise available female.

The system itself is pretty impressive. The optical input is provided by a camera that captures a small "fly arena" at 40 frames-per-second and 512 x 512 pixels. That input is fed into a computer that can track two flies placed in the arena and figure out their body's orientation and their wings' positions.