Abstract
How experience and individuality shape action selection remains a major question in neuroscience. Visually-evoked escape behavior within Drosophila melanogaster provides a robust model to study these mechanisms within neural circuits but requires novel assays to circumvent limitations of current behavior assays. Here we describe and characterize a simple, low to moderate cost, and flexible assay for studying visually-evoked escape responses in tethered flies. This assay consists of a DLP projector, cylindrical rear projection screen, and an automated flight interruption motor all controlled within a MATLAB environment. We find this assay effectively recapitulates fly behaviors previously observed in free behavior assays, and provides a novel opportunity to investigate the behavior of individual flies over the course of numerous stimulus presentations. Current Drosophila escape assays do not permit multiple stimulus presentations and can be highly complex and expensive to implement. This assay provides an effective system to further identify neural components and mechanisms underlying action selection within parallel sensorimotor pathways.
