Kaun Lab
What are the origins of the field of Drosophila behavior?
As someone that has worked on fly behavior for many years, I’ve become more and more fascinated with the beginnings of the field. It...
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Kaun Lab
Mar 283 min read
Does my mood affect my behavior experiments?
This is probably one of my most controversial opinions, but I think that the mood of a person can affect the outcome of an experiment. To...
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Kaun Lab
Mar 284 min read
What ‘neutral’ odors can I use?
My lab performs lots of memory experiments: both Classical (Pavlovian) Conditioning experiments where a cue is presented at the same time...
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Kaun Lab
Mar 274 min read
Should I food deprive (starve) flies for behavior?
As with all behavioral neuroscience animal model experiments, food deprivation is used as a way to increase motivational response. This...
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Kaun Lab
Mar 265 min read
Should I use male or female flies for behavior?
Clearly "Should I use male or female flies for behavior?" is a trick question because there really is nothing limiting you from testing...
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Kaun Lab
Mar 253 min read
How should I clean fly behavior equipment?
It’s important to clean fly behavior equipment because flies leave feces and cuticular hydrocarbons on the behavior arena surface, and...
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Kaun Lab
Mar 244 min read
Do I need to perform a blinded experiment?
When you first learn experimental design, you learn all the best ways to control your experiments and prevent bias from infiltrating your...
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Kaun Lab
Mar 233 min read
Should I watch the flies behave?
More and more the behavioral neuroscience field is moving toward using highly efficient and high-content behavioral tracking software to...
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Kaun Lab
Mar 225 min read
What controls should I use for behavior experiments?
When I first started working on flies, I had no knowledge of genetics or insects. My limited undergraduate research experience included a...
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Kaun Lab
Mar 214 min read
How do I perform optogenetic behavior experiments?
Optogenetics is a great way to temporarily control neuronal function. It’s typically used for light-controlled activation or inhibition...
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Kaun Lab
Mar 204 min read
How do I humidify air and CO2?
Flies can sense humidity in their environment, and change their behavior when the air is too wet or dry (more on this on ‘Does humidity...
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Kaun Lab
Mar 192 min read
How do I make and use a fly aspirator?
When you perform fly behavior experiments, you don’t want to use recently anesthetized flies since the common anesthesia that we use...
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Kaun Lab
Mar 183 min read
Does the size of my flies matter for behavior?
The size of your flies could affect their behavior, but it may depend on the type of behavior you are measuring. Fly size can be directly...
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Kaun Lab
Mar 172 min read
Do ambient odors affect fly behavior?
Drosophila have one of the best characterized olfactory systems of any animal (for a great overview, read Benton, 2022). Flies use...
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Kaun Lab
Mar 172 min read
Does lighting affect fly behavior?
In order to get the most accurate behavior tracking, we create environments that are very artificial to flies. We also need to get very...
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Kaun Lab
Mar 152 min read
How do I build a simple tracking system for fly behavior?
One of the nice things about working with flies is that you can build a simple, cost-efficient tracking system pretty easily. In the lab...
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Kaun Lab
Mar 151 min read
How do I stop the flies from climbing?
Flies demonstrate negative geotaxis, an innate escape response during which flies ascend the walls of whatever chamber they are in. In...
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Kaun Lab
Mar 132 min read
Does isolating flies affect behavior?
Flies have more complex social lives than have really been appreciated by a lot of the field of fly behavioral neurogenetics. I wrote a...
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Kaun Lab
Mar 121 min read
Do thunderstorms affect fly behavior?
My PhD advisor, Dr. Marla Sokolowski, at the University of Toronto always told us that she felt Drosophila adult or larval behavior was...
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Kaun Lab
Mar 112 min read
How long can I anesthetize my flies?
As you probably know, carbon dioxide (CO2) is the most popular anesthesia for fly pushing. It immobilizes flies quickly and flies wake up...
204 views0 comments
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