See the article here
English translation:
It may seem like a threatening looking alien, but don't panic. It is a harmless creature, more precisely a fruit fly. In this microscopic photo you have a frontal view of the animal's brain. The colours have been added to highlight certain cells. These are astrocytes: star-shaped cells in our brains. But we do not yet fully understand what they do and how they communicate with nerve cells. This is what neuroscientist Joana Dopp explains, who is doing her doctorate on sleep at the Laboratory for Sleep and Synaptic Plasticity at VIB-KU Leuven.
"Fruit flies sleep just like us when it is dark, about ten to twelve hours a night. Why animals sleep is still food for research. Sleep is usually examined with measurements such as an electroencephalogram (EEG) or eye movements. Here we look at the cellular level and their connections. What happens to cells such as astrocytes and can patterns be found in them?” The images that this research yields are anything but soporific..
Comments