Graduate School of Frontier Biosciences, Osaka University, Suita, Osaka, 565-0871, Japan.
Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, 812-8582, Japan.
Sci Rep. 2019 May 16;9(1):7460. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-43897-x.
Electrophysiological field potential dynamics have been widely used to investigate brain functions and related psychiatric disorders. Considering recent demand for its applicability to freely moving subjects, especially for animals in a group and socially interacting with each other, here we propose a new method based on a bioluminescent voltage indicator LOTUS-V. Using our fiber-free recording method based on the LOTUS-V, we succeeded in capturing dynamic change of brain activity in freely moving mice. Because LOTUS-V is the ratiometric indicator, motion and head-angle artifacts were not significantly detected. Taking advantage of our method as a fiber-free system, we further succeeded in simultaneously recording from multiple independently-locomotive mice that were freely interacting with one another. Importantly, this enabled us to find that the primary visual cortex, a center of visual processing, was activated during the interaction of mice. This methodology may further facilitate a wide range of studies in neurobiology and psychiatry.
电生理场电位动力学已被广泛用于研究大脑功能和相关的精神疾病。鉴于最近对其在自由活动主体中的适用性的需求，特别是对于群体中的动物和相互社交的动物，我们在这里提出了一种基于生物发光电压指示剂 LOTUS-V 的新方法。使用我们基于 LOTUS-V 的无纤维记录方法，我们成功地捕捉到了自由移动的小鼠大脑活动的动态变化。由于 LOTUS-V 是比率型指示剂，因此没有明显检测到运动和头部角度伪影。利用我们的无纤维系统作为一种方法，我们进一步成功地从多个自由移动并相互作用的独立小鼠中同时进行记录。重要的是，这使我们能够发现，在小鼠的相互作用过程中，初级视觉皮层（视觉处理的中心）被激活。这种方法学可能会进一步促进神经生物学和精神病学的广泛研究。
