如果说果蝇做的事大部分和人类差不多，你赞同吗？吃喝拉撒，泡妞和揾食，果蝇样样在行，包括睡觉模式都和人类一样，年幼的果蝇睡得多，年老的睡得少些；甚至他们服用咖啡因后也保持清醒，服用催眠药后变得嗜睡。人类为什么需要睡眠，也许果蝇能给我们指点方向。普通果蝇中那些能够参与社交活动的一天有1小时左右的打盹时间，而那些单独的个体则只需要15分钟。它们所需要睡眠的时间随着它们所处的社交团体大小的改变而改变。-psytopic.com
科学家发现，在一天的精神力尽的社交或者是选择配偶之后，果蝇明显需要更长时间的睡眠，这给研究人类睡眠对人类的作用照亮了道路。
睡眠仍然是一个迷。为研究人类为什么需要睡眠，加利福利亚圣地亚哥神经系统科学协会的神经基因科学家Indrani Ganguly-Fitzgerald和她的同事Paul Shaw以及华盛顿大学的Jeff Donlea对果蝇的基因和行为进行研究。
“果蝇做所做的事情大部分与人类相同――它们吃、睡、飞、寻找配偶，寻找食物。”Ganguly-Fitzgerald告诉LiveScience。“就如人类经常表现一样，年幼的果蝇睡得更多；年长的果蝇睡得少些；在服用了咖啡因后保持清醒；服用反组胺化合物后变得嗜睡。”
现有关于睡眠的一种观点是大脑需要处理我们在白天所经历的事情。研究者发现普通果蝇中那些能够参与社交活动的一天有1小时左右的打盹时间，而那些单独的个体则只需要15分钟。
它们所需要睡眠的时间随着它们所处的社交团体大小的改变而改变。
对果蝇的与记忆相关的基因研究显示，许多基因都同社会化睡眠的效果有关联。为进一步研究学习和记忆发展如何影响睡眠，Ganguly-Fitzgerald和她的同事们通过假的“雌性”来戏弄雄性果蝇，训练它们不向雌性果蝇求爱，这些“雌性”实际上是产生雌性性激素气味的雄性果蝇。
那些经历大量训练学会了拒绝雌性果蝇的雄性果蝇比没有经过训练的雄性果蝇明显需要更多的睡眠。训练结束后立即进行睡眠剥夺，消除了关于训练的记忆，改变了打盹的时长。
这个发现说明大脑在学习、社会经历方面发生改变时需要睡眠。通过对与睡眠相关的基因的进一步研究，我们可以确定哪些基因与人类的睡眠障碍有关，并且可以帮助药物的开发以及对睡眠障碍的治愈。Ganguly-Fitzgerald说。
附原文：
Flirty Flies Shed Light on Human Sleep and Memory
After a long day spent socializing or learning who to flirt with, fruit flies apparently need to sleep longer, shedding light on what sleep may actually do for humans, scientists now find.
Sleep remains a mystery. To delve into why people need to sleep, neurogeneticist Indrani Ganguly-Fitzgerald at the Neurosciences Institute in San Diego, Calif., and her colleagues Paul Shaw and Jeff Donlea at Washington University in St. Louis experimented with fruit fly genetics and behavior.
"Flies do most things that humans do—they eat, they sleep, they fight, they mate, they forage for food," Ganguly-Fitzgerald told LiveScience. Just as is often the case with humans, flies sleep a lot as young ones, sleep little as they get older, and "stay awake more after being fed caffeine and become sleepy in response to anti-histamine compounds," she said.
One idea scientists have about sleep is that our brains require it to process what we experienced during the day. The researchers found normal fruit flies that were allowed to socialize took hour-long daytime naps, compared to 15-minute catnaps taken by the isolated insects.
Their need for sleep grew with the size of the group they socialized with.
Investigating memory-related genes in the flies revealed many were linked with the effect of socialization on sleep. To further experiment with how learning and development of memories affected sleep, Ganguly-Fitzgerald and her colleagues trained male fruit flies to not court females, by tricking them with unreceptive "females," who were really males generating an aphrodisiac female scent.
Males that learned to avoid receptive females—and thereby underwent extensive training—needed significantly more sleep than untrained males. Sleep deprivation immediately after lessons abolished both memories from their training and changes in nap length.
These findings suggest the brain may need sleep to bring about changes related to learning and social experiences. By further investigating which genes are linked with sleep, future research could determine what genes are linked with human sleep disorders, to help lead to "drug discovery and cures," Ganguly-Fitzgerald said.
By Charles Q. Choi / Special to LiveScience
译者：罗禹(Roger)
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