Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Atsushi Ueda, Abigayle Berg, Tashmit Khan, Madeleine Ruzicka, Shuwen Li, Ellyn Cramer, Atulya Iyengar, Chun-Fang Wu
Summary: Drosophila courtship studies have revealed principles of the neurogenetic organization of complex behavior. Intense light not only enhances courtship towards females but also induces unexpected courtship behaviors among male flies. The innate male courtship behavior is restrained by olfactory cues but can be unleashed by strong visual stimulation in Drosophila.
Article
Biology
Elise C. Croteau-Chonka, Michael S. Clayton, Lalanti Venkatasubramanian, Samuel N. Harris, Benjamin M. W. Jones, Lakshmi Narayan, Michael Winding, Jean-Baptiste Masson, Marta Zlatic, Kristina T. Klein
Summary: This study developed a high-throughput training system and demonstrated classical conditioning and operant conditioning in Drosophila larvae for the first time. The results expand our understanding of the associative learning abilities of Drosophila larvae and provide a platform for studying different forms of associative learning and the underlying neural circuits.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Bo Hu, Bryan Seybold, Shan Yang, Avneesh Sud, Yi Liu, Karla Barron, Paulyn Cha, Marcelo Cosino, Ellie Karlsson, Janessa Kite, Ganesh Kolumam, Joseph Preciado, Jose Zavala-Solorio, Chunlian Zhang, Xiaomeng Zhang, Martin Voorbach, Ann E. Tovcimak, J. Graham Ruby, David A. Ross
Summary: We propose a method that can infer the 3D pose of mice from monocular videos, including their limbs and feet. This non-invasive method provides insights into animal health by accurately measuring their 3D motion. The inferred poses can estimate stride length even when the feet are mostly occluded, making it useful for continuous monitoring of animal health and classification based on age and genotype.
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
(2023)
Article
Materials Science, Biomaterials
Jonas Bittern, Marit Praetz, Marie Baldenius, Christian Klaembt
Summary: Animal behavior can be understood by monitoring locomotor patterns, and in this study, a simple method was described to constrain the movement of fruit fly larvae and monitor their behavior using FIM imaging method for up to 1 hour. The combination of FIM imaging and long analysis periods facilitates the conduction of food choice assays and allows for easy quantification of food preferences.
Article
Neurosciences
Akihiro Yamaguchi, Rui Wu, Paul McNulty, Doycho Karagyozov, Mirna Mihovilovic Skanata, Marc Gershow
Summary: To understand neural activity and behavior, recording multi-neuronal activity in freely behaving animals is desired but challenging. In this study, a new tracking microscope using acousto-optic deflectors (AODs) and an acoustic GRIN lens (TAG lens) was demonstrated to achieve high-speed 2D scanning and recording of neural activity in moving larval Drosophila. This technique can be applied to existing two-photon microscopes for 3D tracking.
FRONTIERS IN NEUROSCIENCE
(2023)
Review
Cell Biology
Joanne L. Sharpe, Jason Morgan, Nicholas Nisbet, Kyra Campbell, Andreu Casali
Summary: Cancer metastasis is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths, involving the spreading of tumour cells throughout the body and forming secondary tumours at distant sites. The process is complex and not fully understood, especially the factors enabling cells to survive and adapt to new microenvironments.
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Vranda Garg, Selina Andre, Diego Giraldo, Luisa Heyer, Martin C. Goepfert, Roland Dosch, Bart R. H. Geurten
Summary: The accurate detection of animal positions and pose is essential for analyzing kinematics, locomotion, and spatial tasks. Most available trackers represent animals as single points in space or use markers to build a skeletal representation of pose. LACE is a marker-free pose-estimator that builds the pose of the animal de novo from its contour, providing a versatile method for assessing position, pose, and movement patterns even in animals without limbs.
FRONTIERS IN BEHAVIORAL NEUROSCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Biology
Gefei Zhang, Xinghu Yu, Gang Huang, Dongxu Lei, Mingsi Tong
Summary: This paper presents an improved high-throughput imaging system for zebrafish larvae, which enhances reliability and automation through optimized loading strategy, dynamic model establishment, and automated rotation method. The improvements significantly reduce human intervention and increase efficiency and success rates of larva imaging.
COMPUTERS IN BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE
(2021)
Article
Biology
Takashi Hara, Shuya Hasegawa, Yasushi Iwatani, Atsuo S. Nishino
Summary: Swimming locomotion in vertebrates is expressed through spinal cord neuron networks, but the evolutionary origin of these networks remains unclear. Ascidian larvae modify local locomotor drives in the trunk-tail junctional region to express swimming behavior.
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL BIOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Neurosciences
Zarion D. Marshall, Ellie S. Heckscher
Summary: Proper assembly of somatosensory circuits is crucial for processing somatosensory stimuli and responding accordingly. However, the understanding of somatosensory circuit development is lagging behind that of other sensory systems. In this study, the researchers examined a specific type of somatosensory interneuron in fruit fly larvae and found that the transcription factor Even-skipped (Eve) plays multiple roles in neuron morphogenesis and the encoding of somatosensory stimuli. The findings shed light on the genetic regulation of somatosensory circuit assembly.
Article
Biochemical Research Methods
Adam Gosztolai, Semih Gunel, Victor Lobato-Rios, Marco Pietro Abrate, Daniel Morales, Helge Rhodin, Pascal Fua, Pavan Ramdya
Summary: LiftPose3D is a deep network-based method that reconstructs 3D poses from a single 2D camera view, overcoming the limitations of traditional triangulation methods. It has been demonstrated to be versatile and effective in analyzing behaviors of various experimental animals, even in scenarios where 3D triangulation is not feasible. The framework enables accurate 3D pose estimation without the need for complex camera arrays and tedious calibration procedures, even in the presence of occluded body parts in freely behaving animals.
Article
Microbiology
Runhang Shu, Daniel A. Hahn, Edouard Jurkevitch, Oscar E. Liburd, Boaz Yuval, Adam Chun-Nin Wong
Summary: The study demonstrates a clear sex-specific effect of the microbiome on foraging and locomotion behaviors in fruit flies, with female flies deprived of their microbiome showing reduced activity in foraging on fruits compared to their male counterparts. This highlights the importance of specific mechanisms driving the modulation of insect behavior by interactions between the host, the microbiome, and food.
FRONTIERS IN MICROBIOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Biology
Marina E. Wosniack, Dylan Festa, Nan Hu, Julijana Gjorgjieva, Jimena Berni
Summary: This study investigates the foraging adaptation of Drosophila larvae to different food conditions and the influence of genetic background. The findings reveal the specific modulation of motor programs by food quality and distribution, as well as the role of the foraging gene in adjusting the behavioral response to food conditions.
Article
Cell Biology
Lihong Sheng, Emily J. J. Shields, Janko Gospocic, Masato Sorida, Linyang Ju, China N. N. Byrns, Faith Carranza, Shelley L. L. Berger, Nancy Bonini, Roberto Bonasio
Summary: By studying the changes in the number and gene expression of ensheathing glia in Drosophila melanogaster brain, it is found that dysregulated ensheathing glia can lead to lipid droplet accumulation, cellular dysfunction, and death, affecting brain health and lifespan. Inhibition of apoptosis can restore the declining number of ensheathing glia with age, improve the neuro-motor performance of aged fruit flies and prolong lifespan. Furthermore, an expanded ensheathing glia population can prevent amyloid-beta accumulation in a fly model of Alzheimer's disease and delay the premature death of diseased animals. These findings highlight the vital role of ensheathing glia in regulating brain health and animal longevity.
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Calvin W. Daack, Derek Yeh, Marc Busch, Christopher L. Kliethermes
Summary: The results suggest that ethanol-induced locomotor stimulation in fruit flies may be mediated by ionotropic GABA receptors. Knockdown of the ionotropic GABA receptor subunit RDL increased ethanol-induced locomotor stimulant response, and feeding the GABAA antagonist picrotoxin had a similar effect. However, the observed increase in ethanol-stimulated locomotion was primarily due to decreased baseline activity in the experiments.
BEHAVIOURAL BRAIN RESEARCH
(2021)
Article
Biochemical Research Methods
Aline Silva da Cruz, Maria Margarida Drehmer, Wagner Baetas-da-Cruz, Joao Carlos Machado
Summary: This study quantified microcirculation cerebral blood flow in a rat model of ischemic stroke using ultrasound biomicroscopy and ultrasound contrast agents. The results showed high sensitivity and specificity of this method, making it a valuable tool for preclinical studies.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE METHODS
(2024)
Article
Biochemical Research Methods
Christina Dalla, Ivana Jaric, Pavlina Pavlidi, Georgia E. Hodes, Nikolaos Kokras, Anton Bespalov, Martien J. Kas, Thomas Steckler, Mohamed Kabbaj, Hanno Wuerbel, Jordan Marrocco, Jessica Tollkuhn, Rebecca Shansky, Debra Bangasser, Jill B. Becker, Margaret McCarthy, Chantelle Ferland-Beckham
Summary: Many funding agencies have emphasized the importance of considering sex as a biological variable in experimental design to improve the reproducibility and translational relevance of preclinical research. Omitting the female sex from experimental designs in neuroscience and pharmacology can result in biased or limited understanding of disease mechanisms. This article provides methodological considerations for incorporating sex as a biological variable in in vitro and in vivo experiments, including the influence of age and hormone levels, and proposes strategies to enhance methodological rigor and translational relevance in preclinical research.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE METHODS
(2024)
Article
Biochemical Research Methods
Wenyu Gu, Dongxu Li, Jia-Hong Gao
Summary: We developed a precise and rapid method for positioning and labelling triaxial OPMs on a wearable magnetoencephalography (MEG) system, improving the efficiency of OPM positioning and labelling.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE METHODS
(2024)
Article
Biochemical Research Methods
Kai Lin, Linhang Zhang, Jing Cai, Jiaqi Sun, Wenjie Cui, Guangda Liu
Summary: The article introduces an EEG feature map processing model for emotion recognition, which achieves significantly improved accuracy by fusing EEG information at different spatial scales and introducing a channel attention mechanism.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE METHODS
(2024)
Article
Biochemical Research Methods
John E. Parker, Asier Aristieta, Aryn H. Gittis, Jonathan E. Rubin
Summary: This work presents a toolbox that implements a methodology for automated classification of neural responses based on spike train recordings. The toolbox provides a user-friendly and efficient approach to detect various types of neuronal responses that may not be identified by traditional methods.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE METHODS
(2024)
Article
Biochemical Research Methods
Yun Liang, Ke Bo, Sreenivasan Meyyappan, Mingzhou Ding
Summary: This study compared the performance of SVM and CNN on the same datasets and found that CNN achieved consistently higher classification accuracies. The classification accuracies of SVM and CNN were generally not correlated, and the heatmaps derived from them did not overlap significantly.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE METHODS
(2024)
Article
Biochemical Research Methods
Antonino Visalli, Maria Montefinese, Giada Viviani, Livio Finos, Antonino Vallesi, Ettore Ambrosini
Summary: This study introduces an analytical strategy that allows the use of mixed-effects models (LMM) in mass univariate analyses of EEG data. The proposed method overcomes the computational costs and shows excellent performance properties, making it increasingly important in the field of neuroscience.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE METHODS
(2024)
Article
Biochemical Research Methods
Xavier Cano-Ferrer, Alexandra Tran -Van -Minh, Ede Rancz
Summary: This study developed a novel rotation platform for studying neural processes and spatial navigation. The platform is modular, affordable, and easy to build, and can be driven by the experimenter or animal movement. The research demonstrated the utility of the platform, which combines the benefits of head fixation and intact vestibular activity.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE METHODS
(2024)
