bioRxiv Science⌕ Search
Home/Archive/bioRxiv

bioRxiv · 10.1101/2024.07.10.602891

Sleep induced by mechanosensory stimulation provides cognitive and health benefits in Drosophila

Inami, S.·Koh, K.
View original source ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

Study ObjectivesSleep is a complex phenomenon regulated by various factors, including sensory input. Anecdotal observations have suggested that gentle rocking helps babies fall asleep, and experimental studies have verified that rocking promotes sleep in both humans and mice. Recent studies have expanded this understanding, demonstrating that gentle vibration also induces sleep in Drosophila. Natural sleep serves multiple functions, including learning and memory, synaptic downscaling, and clearance of harmful substances associated with neurodegenerative diseases. Here, we investigated whether vibration-induced sleep provides similar cognitive and health benefits in Drosophila. MethodsWe administered gentle vibration to flies that slept very little due to a forced activation of wake-promoting neurons and investigated how the vibration influenced learning and memory in the courtship conditioning paradigm. Additionally, we examined the effects of VIS on synaptic downscaling by counting synapse numbers of select neurons. Finally, we determined whether vibration could induce sleep in Drosophila models of Alzheimers disease (AD) and promote the clearance of Amyloid {beta} (A{beta}) and Tubulin Associated Unit (TAU). ResultsVibration-induced sleep enhanced performance in a courtship conditioning paradigm and reduced the number of synapses in select neurons. Moreover, vibration improved sleep in Drosophila models of AD, promoting the clearance of A{beta} and TAU. ConclusionsMechanosensory stimulation offers a promising non-invasive avenue for enhancing sleep, potentially providing associated cognitive and health benefits. Significance StatementSleep is critical for a healthy mind and body, and sleep disturbances are commonly associated with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimers disease. Sleep is influenced by sensory input, and mechanical stimulation, such as gentle rocking and vibration, has been shown to promote sleep in various species, including humans, mice, and fruit flies. This study demonstrates that gentle vibration not only helps flies sleep better but also improves their performance in a learning and memory task and makes their brains more efficient in clearing harmful substances. Notably, vibration can facilitate the clearance of Amyloid {beta} and the TAU proteins, which accumulate in Alzheimers disease. These results highlight the potential for gentle mechanosensory stimulation to promote sleep and cognitive health.

Explore related subjects

neurosciencePreprint

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Inami, S., Koh, K.. 2024-07-12. Sleep induced by mechanosensory stimulation provides cognitive and health benefits in Drosophila. https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.07.10.602891

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related preprints

bioRxiv2026

Attention Across Scales: From Individual Variation to Social Hierarchies and Brain Networks in Semi-Free-Ranging Macaques

Attention is a fundamental brain function supporting perception, decision-making, and social behavior, and its dysfunction profoundly impairs daily life. It is both dynamic and stable, varying across observations and individuals, changing across the lifespan, and being shaped by social and environmental experience. Yet capturing this complexity remains a central challenge in neuroscience. Here, we integrated longitudinal behavioral assessments of semi-free-ranging macaques living in naturalistic social groups with resting-state fMRI. We quantified performance across days, ages, and social hierarchies and related it to intrinsic brain organization. Distinct attentional phenotypes emerged, including individuals with reduced attentional control. Performance followed an inverted-U lifespan trajectory, improving from childhood to adulthood before declining. Social status modulated attentional performance. Critically, nonlinear lifespan trajectories and associations with individual attentional differences were most clearly expressed in frontoparietal connectivity. Together, these findings reveal how sustained attention is organized across scales, providing a biological framework for its individual diversity, social modulation, and neural basis.

neuroscience↗
bioRxiv2026

Decoding natural scenes from patterned optogenetic responses in mouse visual cortex

A central challenge in developing visual cortical prostheses is to determine how visual stimuli should be transformed into effective patterns of cortical stimulation. Although advances in stimulation technologies, including optogenetics, provide increasingly precise control over cortical activity, it remains unclear whether artificially evoked activity can reproduce the information content of naturally evoked visual representations. Here we establish a quantitative framework for evaluating visual encoding strategies by decoding cortical responses evoked by natural vision and patterned optogenetic stimulation. We developed a novel dual-modal paradigm in awake mice to bridge the gap between endogenous photostimulation and artificial network driving. By co-expressing the high-performance calcium indicator GCaMP6s and the red-shifted, ultra-sensitive opsin rsChRmine-oScarlet in the primary visual cortex (V1), we successfully translated dynamic natural movie frames into patterned, spatiotemporal optogenetic stimulation. Quantitative comparisons of macro-scale dynamics demonstrated that this patterned optogenetic injection evokes cortical states highly comparable and representationally aligned with those driven by actual visual photostimulation. To systematically evaluate the fidelity of these responses, we developed STAR, a deep learning model featuring spatial and temporal attention mechanisms, and successfully reconstructed the frames of natural movies from V1 signals under both experimental modalities. Collectively, our results demonstrate that complex sensory information can be both naturally encoded and synthetically injected into V1 circuits with high decoding fidelity. This work provides an empirical and computational proof-of-concept for intelligent, closed-loop biomimetic encoders, establishing a robust framework for next-generation cortical visual neuroprostheses and bidirectional brain-machine interfaces.

neuroscience↗
bioRxiv2026

Why Is Spontaneous Blink Timing Informative? An Adaptive Scheduling Perspective

Spontaneous eye blinks have long been linked to cognitive processing, yet how task demands shape blink timing and its relationship to behavioral performance remains unclear. We examined spontaneous blink behavior in 576 adults performing two variants of the Continuous Performance Task (CPT). Blink occurrence and timing were most strongly modulated by the experimental condition in the more demanding CPT-AX task, whereas their association with response time was stronger in the CPT-X task, where more consistent blink timing predicted faster responses. This dissociation suggests that task structure changes not only blink behavior but also the behavioral relevance of blink timing. These findings are consistent with an adaptive scheduling account of spontaneous blinking and provide a conceptual framework for understanding when and why blink timing contains chronometric information about ongoing cognition.

neuroscience↗