Processing circadian data collected from the Drosophila Activity Monitoring (DAM) System

Adult behavioral assays have been used with great success in Drosophila melanogaster to identify circadian rhythm genes. In particular, the locomotor activity assay can identify altered behavior patterns over the course of several days in small populations, or even individual flies. Generally, circadian behavior is assayed during a period of 12 h light:12 h dark cycling (LD entrainment) followed by conditions of constant darkness (DD). LD activity profiles provide a qualitative image of daily activity bouts, and the data can be used to quantitatively assess the phase and/or amplitude of particular bouts. Additional activity assessments made from entrained flies that have been shifted to constant darkness can provide insight into the state of internal clocks and the ability of these clocks to drive rhythmic outputs. Typical LD DD runs assess both free-running rhythmicity and period length with χ2 periodogram (P'gram) analysis. This protocol describes the use of ClockLab (a MATLAB-based program) and the Counting Macro (an Excel-based program) to analyze circadian locomotor activity data collected using the Drosophila Activity Monitoring (DAM) System from TriKinetics. Specific procedures are described to analyze free-running rhythmicity and period length for individual flies, and assess group activity plots during both entrainment and constant conditions.