A novel assay to evaluate action selection in escape behavior.

Background: How experience and individuality shape action selection remains a major question in neuroscience. Visually-evoked escape behavior within Drosophila melanogaster provides a robust model to study these mechanisms within neural circuits but requires novel assays to circumvent limitations of current behavior assays.

Method: Here we describe and characterize a simple, low to moderate cost, and flexible assay for studying visually-evoked escape responses in tethered flies.