Journal article
A novel assay to evaluate action selection in escape behavior
Journal of neuroscience methods, v 304
01 Jul 2018
PMID: 29715480
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
•Novel tethered Drosophila assay for repeated presentation of looming stimuli.
•Assay captures key action selection behavior patterns of freely behaving flies.
•Enables investigation of individual fly’s circuits with repeated stimulation.
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.
Here we describe and characterize a simple, low to moderate cost, and flexible assay for studying visually-evoked escape responses in tethered flies. This assay consists of a DLP projector, cylindrical rear projection screen, and an automated flight interruption motor all controlled within a MATLAB environment.
We find this assay effectively recapitulates fly behaviors previously observed in free behavior assays, and provides a novel opportunity to investigate the behavior of individual flies over the course of numerous stimulus presentations.
Current Drosophila escape assays do not permit multiple stimulus presentations and can be highly complex and expensive to implement.
This assay provides an effective system to further identify neural components and mechanisms underlying action selection within parallel sensorimotor pathways.
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Details
- Title
- A novel assay to evaluate action selection in escape behavior
- Creators
- David P. Goodman - Drexel UniversityAbby Eldredge - Drexel UniversityCatherine R. von Reyn (Corresponding Author) - Drexel University
- Publication Details
- Journal of neuroscience methods, v 304
- Publisher
- Elsevier
- Number of pages
- 8
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- School of Biomedical Engineering, Science, and Health Systems
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000435622300016
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-85046671954
- Other Identifier
- 991019168528004721
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InCites Highlights
Data related to this publication, from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool:
- Web of Science research areas
- Biochemical Research Methods
- Neurosciences