【Purpose】 Sleep in Drosophila was defined in 2000 by using an equipment named Drosophila Activity Monitor (DAM) system. However, this DAM system has too narrow space for Drosophila (fly) to analyze their social behavior. To overcome such demerits of DAM system, we developed a novel automated sleep and rhythm analysis system (AutoCircaS) which can monitor and record any behaviors like social mating, sleep, and circadian rhythm in flies in free space using the time-lapse (one frame per 10 sec) imaging. This study aimed to investigate the hypnotic effect of Japanese traditional herbal medicines on fly insomnia models by using the AutoCircaS.
【Method】 The caffeine-induced insomnia wild-type flies and the short-sleep mutant [fumin (fmn)] flies were used to assess the hypnotic effects of Japanese traditional herbal medicines in vivo. Flies were placed individually into 24-well microplates with drug-containing medium and acclimated for 3 days. The sleep duration was measured for 3 days by using the AutoCircaS.
【Results and Discussion】 Shortening of the sleeping duration was recorded in the caffeine-induced wild-type and the fmn-mutant flies using AutoCircaS. In this new system, we found Japanese traditional herbal medicines, KKG, NK and a Kampo hypnotic prescription Sansoninto, significantly improved the shortening of the sleep duration in the caffeine-induced insomnia flies. Moreover, KKG also significantly improved the decrement of the sleep duration in the fmn-mutant insomnia flies. The data provide new insights into the use of KKG and NK for human insomnia.