Flies and humans have much in common, particularly from the viewpoint of genes and proteins. If you discover a direct link, you can use an animal like these flies to help build models for study. Conducting studies on an animal like a fly is easier because you can use a lot of them and at a low cost. These discoveries were made possible by the mapping of the fruit fly genome. Once the map of the Drosophila genome was completed, researchers could conduct experiments entirely on computer.
Computer modeling is amazing.
A simple organism such as the fly makes this research much easier. Not only is the entire genome available, the potential for new discoveries is increased by the speed of reproduction, and as a result, trait selection. The benefits aren't present with studies using mammals, Bonovich said. There is fair interest in fruit fly genome as a key model organism for similar studies. Neurotransmitters are the mailmen of the chemical instructions that the brain sends from neuron to neuron.