A system for the delivery of general anesthetics and other volatile agentsto the fruit-fly Drosophila melanogaster

The system described here provides a simple method of delivering anesthetic vapor to the fruit-fly Drosophila melanogaster. This system delivers known concentrations of volatile anesthetic vapor obtained from liquid anestheti cs in a continuous gas stream of pure humidified air. It controls for evapo ration, and absorption of volatile agents, whilst allowing for extracellula r electrophysiological recordings. Recordings were made from the fly's esca pe muscles, the jump tergotrochanter muscle (TTM) and the flight dorsal lon gitudinal muscle (DLM). The system minimizes the quantity of anesthetic use d, making the use of more expensive and more conventional anesthetics cost effective and practicable. It also permits monitoring the fly's movements d uring anesthesia. (C) 1998 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights re served.