Put a young male fruit fly together with a virgin female and what happens? Nothing, if Ann-Shyn Chiang has anything to do with it, because each time the male gets near the female, Chiang zaps him with a laser beam. Chiang, from the National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan, is studying learning, memory, and social behavior in Drosophila, and his laser beam system is designed not only to train flies—in this case, to avoid courting a female—but also to track their movements, and to manipulate their behaviors by switching neurons on and off.
The new system, called ALTOMS (for automated laser tracking and optogenetic modification system), uses a CCD camera to capture fly movement at 40 frames per second. Software designed by Chiang then analyzes this movement data in real time and uses it to automatically target laser beams to the fly’s head, abdomen, or thorax as the animal moves. ...
