A microfluidic device to study neuronal and motor responses to acute chemical stimuli in zebrafish

Raphaël Candelier (1) , Meena Sriti Murmu (2) , Sebastián Alejo Romano (2) , Adrien Jouary (2) , Georges Debrégeas (1) , Germán Sumbre (2)

1 LJP - Laboratoire Jean Perrin
2 IBENS - Institut de biologie de l'ENS Paris

Zebrafish larva is a unique model for whole-brain functional imaging and to study sensory-motor integration in the vertebrate brain. To take full advantage of this system, one needs to design sensory environments that can mimic the complex spatiotemporal stimulus patterns experienced by the animal in natural conditions. We report on a novel open-ended microfluidic device that delivers pulses of chemical stimuli to agarose-restrained larvae with near-millisecond switching rate and unprecedented spatial and concentration accuracy and reproducibility. In combination with two-photon calcium imaging and recordings of tail movements, we found that stimuli of opposite hedonic values induced different circuit activity patterns. Moreover, by precisely controlling the duration of the stimulus (50–500 ms), we found that the probability of generating a gustatory-induced behavior is encoded by the number of neurons activated. This device may open new ways to dissect the neural-circuit principles underlying chemosensory perception.

Mots clés: Gustatory system; Sensorimotor processing

Domaines: Neurosciences [q-bio.NC]

Raphaël Candelier, Meena Sriti Murmu, Sebastián Alejo Romano, Adrien Jouary, Georges Debrégeas, et al.. A microfluidic device to study neuronal and motor responses to acute chemical stimuli in zebrafish. Scientific Reports, 2015, 5, pp.12196. ⟨10.1038/srep12196⟩. ⟨hal-01223347⟩