Fruit Flies Age Rapidly When They See Their Dead Comrades: Study
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Scientists in a study found out that fruit flies who are raised in an environment surrounded by their dead fellow mates are more likely to have shorter spans of life than the other ones who were raised around living flies.
The research could prove fruitful for humans too as the scientists explore ways how this study can be applied to people, who are due to their jobs, are constantly surrounded by a mournful environment where they are close to the dead ones. Therefore, the conclusions of the study could be helpful for soldiers in conflict zones and healthcare workers.
The research was headed by Christi Gendron and Scott Pletcher at the University of Michigan. For the study, the researchers brought up fruit flies in tiny containers filled with food. The research could prove fruitful for humans too as the scientists explore ways how this study can be applied to people, who are due to their jobs, are constantly surrounded by a mournful environment where they are close to the dead ones. Therefore, the conclusions of the study could be helpful for soldiers in conflict zones and healthcare workers.
To understand how the flies will behave around the dead carcasses, the researchers kept living flies and tasty nutrients in one of the boxes while in another container, they put freshly dead fruit flies.
They then observed the behavioral changes that took place in feeding insects. The research outcomes suggest that the flies who were raised with their dead comrades died several weeks early in comparison to those who were raised without the sight of dead carcasses.
The study further suggests the biological changes that took place in the insects during the research. Not only did the flies aged at a fast pace, but they also exhibited other changes like losing stored fat and they also became less resilient to starvation.
This was viewed by the scientists as if the flies were going through "depression" leading to the changes in their life span. As per the study, the aging process in fruit flies surrounded by dead flies resulted in shortening up the lives of the flies by about 30 percent.
The researchers also looked deep into the brain of the fruit flies to draw more substantial conclusions. As per their findings, there is a link between the neurons in the flies' brains and a protein secreted by them.
As more and more neurons got active in the brain of the flies, there was more fluorescent protein these neurons produced. They found that two types of neurons, namely R2 and R4. These neurons were seen to be activated in the brains of the flies who were surrounded by dead flies.
Scientists did an interesting experiment to see what impact these neurons will have on the flies who were raised with living flies. When R2 and R4 were stimulated in healthy fruit flies it resulted in cutting short the life span of these flies.
Authors in Plos Biology raised questions, “Could motivational therapy or pharmacologic intervention in reward systems, much like what is done for addiction, slow aging?”
With the drugs which are already available and approved in the medicine field, the research can be tested to see how human beings can be benefited with these findings.
In what sounds promising, this study can help find new treatments to slow aging in humans. “Given our findings,” the authors write, “it seems plausible that the sight of dead conspecifics elucidates a “depressive-like” state that results in decreased longevity.”
