Following acute neural injury, severed axons undergo programmed Wallerian degeneration over several following days.

While sleep has been linked with synaptic reorganization under other conditions, the role of sleep in responses to neural injuries remains poorly understood. To study the relationship between sleep and neural injury responses, we have examined Drosophila melanogaster following the removal of antennae or other sensory tissues. Daytime sleep is elevated after antennal or wing injury, but sleep returns to baseline levels within 24 h after injury. We also find that presynaptic active zones are preferentially removed from severed axons within hours after injury and that depriving recently injured flies of sleep slows the removal of both active zones and damaged axons. These data support a bidirectional interaction between sleep and synapse pruning after antennal injury: locally increasing the need to clear neural debris is associated with increased sleep, which is required for efficient active zone removal after injury

This talk is organised but The Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour. For further information, please contact Fiona Woods at fiona.woods@cncb.ox.ac.uk