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Neuroscience, Issue 100, Caenorhabditis elegans, model organism, neurobiology, microfluidics, calcium imaging, behavior
Abstract:
Behavior is controlled by the nervous system. Calcium imaging is a straightforward method in the transparent nematode Caenorhabditis elegans
to measure the activity of neurons during various behaviors. To correlate neural activity with behavior, the animal should not be immobilized
but should be able to move. Many behavioral changes occur during long time scales and require recording over many hours of behavior. This
also makes it necessary to culture the worms in the presence of food. How can worms be cultured and their neural activity imaged over long
time scales? Agarose Microchamber Imaging (AMI) was previously developed to culture and observe small larvae and has now been adapted
to study all life stages from early L1 until the adult stage of C. elegans. AMI can be performed on various life stages of C. elegans. Longterm
calcium imaging is achieved without immobilizing the animals by using short externally triggered exposures combined with an electron
multiplying charge-coupled device (EMCCD) camera recording. Zooming out or scanning can scale up this method to image up to 40 worms in
parallel. Thus, a method is described to image behavior and neural activity over long time scales in all life stages of C. elegans.
