A few years ago, scientists found that the common fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, sleeps in a remarkably human-like way. Now a new study on fruit fly brains shows that a specific brain region—previously linked to the fly's memories of smell—is also vital to sleep. These results support the idea that memory consolidation may play a big part in fly sleep, and, likely, human sleep. "The link between sleep and learning a lot of people can identify with – particularly college students who pull all-nighters," says lead researcher Jena Pitman of Northwestern University, "But that link is pretty universal." Might a sleeping fruit fly be digesting the memory of a rotten banana it ate for dinner?
Fruit flies and humans share many of what scientists call the "essential features" of sleep. Both species sleep for many hours at night, for instance, says Ravi Allada, one of the other neuroscientists involved in ...
