Can trauma haunt Drosophila melanogaster for generations?
Board Location: #87
Discipline: Neuroscience
Subcategory: Physiology and Health
Session: 3
Alyssa Davis - Georgia State University
Co-Author(s): Elizabeth Miller, Georgia State University, Atlanta GA
Intergenerational trauma is a poorly-understood phenomenon in which traumatic events experienced by one generation affect subsequent generations. Intergenerational trauma harms many groups of people extensively, thus it is vital to deepen our knowledge and understanding of the processes underlying it. Drosophila melanogaster is a model organism that procreates rapidly and can be exposed to a wide variety of experimentally validated high-stress situations. These qualities make Drosophila a promising organism to use for studying the effects of trauma passed between generations.While previous research using this organism has demonstrated epigenetic changes associated with intergenerational trauma, behavioral effects of intergenerational trauma have not been characterized. This project aims to bridge that gap in current scientific knowledge and establish whether Drosophila melanogaster can be used as a model organism for intergenerational trauma research beyond epigenetic effects. We have exposed flies to trauma via one or two 9-hour bouts of restraint stress and assessed the behavior of the offspring in a light/dark box assay. Control flies were isolated and food-deprived for the same time period to ensure that differences were due to restraint stress. We find an increased preference for light in the offspring of flies that underwent two bouts of restraint (136.8 seconds vs. 56.8 seconds in light out of 300 seconds, p=0.018).While the light/dark box is commonly used as a proxy for anxiety-like behaviors in rodents, in flies it is generally considered a measure of exploratory behavior, which may be considered analogous to risk-taking in more complex organisms. As with any model organism, these results cannot be directly generalized to other species. However, intergenerational trauma in Drosophila is worthwhile to study in that it could lead to an updated understanding of intergenerational trauma on a broader level and in other species, including humans. The successful creation of a behavioral model of intergenerational trauma in Drosophila would allow for the study of trauma in situations where a low-cost, short time scale system is necessary, such as in undergraduate research laboratories. Future research will include additional mechanisms of trauma such as social isolation and sleep deprivation. These will be used alone and in various combinations along with restraint to determine whether the combined effect of multiple different traumas differs from the effect of a single type. We will also perform additional behavioral assays including the forced swim test, social space measurement, and open field test to determine whether multiple aspects of behavior are impacted by intergenerational trauma in Drosophila.
Funder Acknowledgement(s): This research is supported by a GA-AL LSAMP Fellowship award to Alyssa Davis.
Faculty Advisor: Sarah G. Clark, PhD, sclark56@gsu.edu
Role: I designed the research, performed restraint, and performed light/dark box assays.