Waking Experience Affects Sleep Need in Drosophila

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Abstract
Sleep is a vital, evolutionarily conserved phenomenon, whose function is unclear. Although mounting evidence supports a role for sleep in the consolidation of memories, until now, a molecular connection between sleep, plasticity, and memory formation has been difficult to demonstrate. We establish Drosophila as a model to investigate this relation and demonstrate that the intensity and/or complexity of prior social experience stably modifies sleep need and architecture. Furthermore, this experience-dependent plasticity in sleep need is subserved by the dopaminergic and adenosine 3′,5′-monophosphate signaling pathways and a particular subset of 17 long-term memory genes.