Presentation Details
| Brain-wide representations of olfactory navigational behavior in C.elegans Helena Casademunt, Aravinthan Samuel, . Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA |
Abstract
Olfactory navigation towards improved environments requires a dynamic interplay between an animal's brain activity and body movement. The small size of C. elegans permits multi-neuronal imaging of brain-wide activity in response to defined olfactory environments. Its undulatory body permits a reduction of navigational movement to stimulus-dependent transitions between forward, reverse, and turning motor states. Here, we use brain-wide tracking microscopy to monitor the circuit for olfactory navigation in crawling worms climbing spatial odor gradients and immobilized worms responding to temporal odor pulses. In both crawling and immobilized animals, we identify strongly-correlated brain-wide activity patterns from olfactory sensory neurons to interneurons to premotor neurons. The spatial pattern of activity correlations between specific neurons in the brain is jointly dependent on sensory and motor activity, but also directly dependent on whether the worm is actively crawling in a spatial gradient (where body movement is coupled to sensory perception) or whether the worm is immobilized and subjected to odor pulses. The temporal dynamics of transitions between forward/backward motor states is directly dependent on whether the animal is actively crawling or immobilized. Moreover, the temporal dynamics of neurons that underlie motor state transitions are modulated by crawling and immobilization. The brain-wide representation of olfactory response and decision-making are broadly reconfigured by an animal's body movements within its odor environment.
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No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author.