The motor pattern of rolling escape locomotion in Drosophila larvae
Liping He, Lydia J Borjon, W Daniel Tracey Jr · 2026
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Description
Liping He, Lydia J. Borjon, and W. Daniel Tracey Jr. published a neuroscience study in 2026 on how fruit fly larvae roll away from pain. Undisturbed larvae crawl forward with waves of muscle contraction. A painful stimulus instead makes them corkscrew roll across the ground. The muscle timing behind that roll was unknown.
The team built a fast imaging setup to watch muscles during rolling. Light-based triggers activated the pain sensors on cue. A calcium sensor glowed inside the muscles as they fired. Only about a third of each segment's muscles fired reliably during rolls. The firing wave traveled around the body, not along it. That pattern differed completely from crawling forward or backward.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Liping He, Lydia J Borjon, W Daniel Tracey Jr |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 53 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |