Topic: total walking

The open field test (OFT) is widely used to score anxiety and depression levels in rodents. In the OFT, fruit flies show wall-following behavior (WAFO) similar to rodents. However, it is questionable to which extent insects can perceive emotions such as fear or depression. To characterise the influence of emotion-like states on the OFT behavior in flies, we measured both WAFO and total walking (TOWA) in the OFT in wild-type flies paired with negative or positive stimuli, altered internal states, or pharmaceutical treatment.CantonS wildtype flies treated with negatively valenced biological stre