A Computational Study of the Drosophila melanogaster Circadian Clock.

Drosophila melanogaster has an internal clock that controls sleep and waking behaviors and allows it to function appropriately on a daily cycle. The internal clock has a natural cycle about 24h-long that can be observed even in complete darkness, but also uses light cues to remain in sync with the actual day-night cycle. In this work, I use a computational model of the Drosophila clock to study the effect of varying intensities of light and duration of daytime on the period of the oscillations. The model tracks 15 clock molecules and their interactions to predict the evolution of their concentrations.