A leg model based on anatomical landmarks to study 3D joint kinematics of walking in Drosophila melanogaster.

ABSTRACT: Walking is the most common form of how animals move on land. The model organism Drosophila melanogaster has become increasingly popular for studying how the nervous system controls behavior in general and walking in particular. Despite recent advances in tracking and modeling leg movements of walking Drosophila in 3D, there are still gaps in knowledge about the biomechanics of leg joints due to the tiny size of fruit flies. For instance, the natural alignment of joint rotational axes was largely neglected in previous kinematic analyses. In this study, we therefore present a detailed kinematic leg model in which not only the segment lengths but also the main rotational axes of the joints were derived from anatomical landmarks, namely, the joint condyles. Our model with natural

SUBMITTER: Haustein M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11233710 | biostudies-literature | 2024

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature