Research Paper Volume 11, Issue 6 pp 1850—1873

Figure 3. Characteristics of late-life impairments. (A) Cumulative life quality score during the last three days for each animal decreased significantly with age of death (Pearson’s correlation coefficient = 0.506; p < 0.001). (B) Average fitness scores as obtained from the startle assay reveal a marked decline in flight (green line) and jumping (red line) responses and a moderate decrease in climbing responses with age. Overall performance score (blue, sum of all scores) decreased with age. (C) Cumulative impairment scores (sum of all negative scores for each animal with disabilities) revealed no correlation between degree of impairments and age at death (Pearson’s correlation coefficient = 0.016; p > 0.2). (D) Impairment duration did not correlate with age at death (Pearson’s correlation coefficient = -0.011; p > 0.2). (E) Cohort fitness scores decreased significantly during health-span (we started scoring healthy flies at 60 days of age. Note that the oldest fly that did not show any impairment until death was 76 day old, thus resulting in a 16 days observation period, from 60-to-76 days, see x-axis in E) (Pearson’s correlation coefficient = -0.913; p < 0.001).