Researcher ORCID Identifier
https://orcid.org/0009-0002-7452-9751
Graduation Year
2025
Document Type
Campus Only Senior Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Biology
Reader 1
Dr. Sandra Watson
Reader 2
Dr. Jennifer Armstrong
Terms of Use & License Information
Abstract
Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is a neurological disorder characterized by the aggregation of α-synuclein (α-syn), a protein found in presynaptic terminals. These aggregates can cause progressive dopaminergic neuron loss by impairing synaptic transmission. PD is accompanied by both motor and nonmotor symptoms, including tremors, bradykinesia (slow movement), and REM sleep disorders. The primary treatment for PD is L-DOPA/Carbidopa (LDC), which boosts dopamine levels in the brain through the combination of L-DOPA, a precursor to dopamine, and carbidopa, an L-DOPA breakdown inhibitor. To investigate the effects of LDC, this study used Drosophila melanogaster models of PD, in which two mutant forms of the human α-synuclein (SNCA) gene associated with hereditary PD, A53T and A30P, are expressed. Previous research establishes the progressive climbing ability loss in this PD model, but no study has measured the effects of an LDC treatment in these models. We use the Drosophila Activity Monitors to track fly movement and quantify fly activity, sleep architecture, and survival rates to determine the impact of aging and LDC treatment in these PD models. We established an age-induced decrease in locomotor activity with SNCA transgenic expression under pan-neuronal (nSyb-Gal4) and partial dopaminergic neuron (TH-C-Gal4) expression patterns. Further, we established an optimal dose of LDC and showed that utilization at this dosage rescued locomotor activity in 30-day-old PD flies. Establishing this model has the potential to uncover pathophysiological mechanisms behind PD, and future work aims to determine the dopamine pathway responsible for these effects on locomotor activity.
Recommended Citation
Katayama-Stall, Quinn T., "Dissecting Dopaminergic Circuit Contributions to Sleep, Activity, and Survival in a Drosophila Parkinson’s Disease Model" (2025). Scripps Senior Theses. 2907.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/2907
This thesis is restricted to the Claremont Colleges current faculty, students, and staff.
