Two photon imaging of tactile responses during frequency discrimination in awake head fixed rats
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1
University of Zurich, Switzerland
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2
Max Planck Institute for Medical Research, Germany
A mainstay in systems neuroscience is the use of two alternative forced choice paradigms in the head-fixed primate. Although favorable in many respects, a rodent model of this type of behavioral task has not been established up to now. Head restriction is a prerequisite for a precise presentation of tactile stimuli to the vibrissae and enables two-photon imaging of the neural activity in the behaving animal. Rats were trained to discriminate sinusoidal whisker vibration stimuli. Using a dedicated motorized mechanical system, the head fixation is released following stimulus presentation. In this way, the animal is allowed to perform a left or right rotation of the head to receive a reward from a water-spout located on either side. By choosing one of the spouts the animal reported which stimulus it perceived. Stimulation with a target frequency (190 Hz) of the left/right whisker would lead to a reward on the respective water spout. After reward retrieval, the head is slowly brought back to centre position. The rats were able to discriminate frequencies in the range of 60 to 190 Hz and associate them to the location of the reward. The animals were able to perform this task with 90%of correct responses. We furthermore combined the described head fixation mechanics with two photon imaging of barrel cortex neurons. A recombinant adeno-associated virus carrying constructs for the genetically-encoded calcium indicator Yellow Chameleon 3.6 (YC 3.6) was injected in the somatosensory cortex. This procedure allows imaging of action potential evoked calcium signals in multiple neurons during the behavioral task. Continuous imaging of identical neuronal populations across trials and days was possible due to a chronic cranial window and the stable expression and function of YC 3.6. Imaging was performed up to two months after infection of the neurons. In conclusion, the two alternative forced choice paradigm presented here opens new possibilities for imaging neuronal activity related to complex discriminative behavior and learning in rats.
Conference:
Computational and Systems Neuroscience 2010, Salt Lake City, UT, United States, 25 Feb - 2 Mar, 2010.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Topic:
Poster session I
Citation:
Haiss
F,
Mayrhofer
J,
Margolis
D,
Hasan
MT,
Helmchen
F and
Weber
B
(2010). Two photon imaging of tactile responses during frequency discrimination in awake head fixed rats.
Front. Neurosci.
Conference Abstract:
Computational and Systems Neuroscience 2010.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnins.2010.03.00141
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Received:
01 Mar 2010;
Published Online:
01 Mar 2010.
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Correspondence:
Florent Haiss, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, fhaiss@pharma.uzh.ch