Sleep is a behaviour that is common in all animals but the reason to how lack of sleep can affect the animal’s condition requires further investigation. A study was done to look more closely at this behaviour from sleep and activity patterns of 40 different lines of wild Drosophila melanogaster (fruit flies) at the genetic level as it may contribute to the understanding of human sleep. The fruit flies were homozygous but the lines were different and each one of these flies were placed in a small glass tube which were connected to a machine that monitored the activity of the flies every minute using infrared sensors. The study found that in male flies, the duration of sleep was longer than female flies on average. Also, males slept more during the day and were more active when awake than females. Almost 1700 genes were identified in the study and some were not known to have an effect on the variability of sleep in fruit flies before this study was conducted. Some genes that were thought to have an effect on sleep duration were verified by separate mutations in those important genes and effects on sleep duration were observed. Groups of genes that affect sleep were identified in the study and now there is a greater understanding of how genes relate to sleep.
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http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090222142149.htm
