Sun Yuanjie, Gao Shan, Ji Feiteng, Zhu Yan
State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
Bio Protoc. 2019 Feb 5;9(3):e3154. doi: 10.21769/BioProtoc.3154.
Water is essential for the survival of terrestrial animals. Animals obtain water from their food, from metabolism and, more importantly, by drinking. It is therefore vital for dehydrated animals to efficiently locate water sources in the wild. Traditional paradigm for studying the genetic basis of humidity sensation and preference use an apparatus consisting of two chambers providing a binary choice between flows of dry and moist air that maintain steep humidity gradients. Here, we introduce a novel assay to study water-seeking behavior (hygrotaxis) in , in which dehydrated flies detect a humidity gradient and rapidly aggregate near an inaccessible water source. Our previous work using this method demonstrated that hygrotactic behavior relies on both specific sensory organs and central brain neurons.
水对于陆生动物的生存至关重要。动物从食物中获取水分，通过新陈代谢获取水分，更重要的是通过饮水获取水分。因此，对于脱水的动物来说，在野外有效定位水源至关重要。传统的研究湿度感知和偏好的遗传基础的范式使用一种装置，该装置由两个腔室组成，在干燥和潮湿空气流之间提供二元选择，以维持陡峭的湿度梯度。在这里，我们引入了一种新的实验方法来研究果蝇的觅水行为（趋湿性），在该实验中，脱水的果蝇检测湿度梯度并迅速聚集在无法获取的水源附近。我们之前使用这种方法的研究表明，趋湿行为依赖于特定的感觉器官和中枢脑神经元。
