Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, United States.
Department of Physics, New York University, New York, United States.
Elife. 2023 Jul 25;12:e85910. doi: 10.7554/eLife.85910.
Olfactory navigation is observed across species and plays a crucial role in locating resources for survival. In the laboratory, understanding the behavioral strategies and neural circuits underlying odor-taxis requires a detailed understanding of the animal's sensory environment. For small model organisms like and larval , controlling and measuring the odor environment experienced by the animal can be challenging, especially for airborne odors, which are subject to subtle effects from airflow, temperature variation, and from the odor's adhesion, adsorption, or reemission. Here, we present a method to control and measure airborne odor concentration in an arena compatible with an agar substrate. Our method allows continuous controlling and monitoring of the odor profile while imaging animal behavior. We construct stationary chemical landscapes in an odor flow chamber through spatially patterned odorized air. The odor concentration is measured with a spatially distributed array of digital gas sensors. Careful placement of the sensors allows the odor concentration across the arena to be continuously inferred in space and monitored through time. We use this approach to measure the odor concentration that each animal experiences as it undergoes chemotaxis behavior and report chemotaxis strategies for and larvae populations as they navigate spatial odor landscapes.
嗅觉导航在不同物种中都有观察到，对寻找生存资源起着至关重要的作用。在实验室中，要理解动物进行气味追踪的行为策略和神经回路，需要对动物的感官环境有详细的了解。对于像 和幼虫 这样的小模式生物，控制和测量动物所经历的气味环境具有挑战性，特别是对于空气传播的气味，它们受到气流、温度变化以及气味的附着力、吸附或再发射等细微影响。在这里，我们提出了一种在与琼脂基质兼容的竞技场中控制和测量空气传播气味浓度的方法。我们的方法允许在对动物行为进行成像的同时，对气味特征进行连续控制和监测。我们通过空间图案化的气味空气在气味流动室中构建固定的化学景观。使用空间分布的数字气体传感器阵列来测量气味浓度。通过仔细放置传感器，可以在空间上连续推断出整个竞技场的气味浓度，并通过时间进行监测。我们使用这种方法来测量动物在进行趋化行为时所经历的气味浓度，并报告 和 幼虫群体在导航空间气味景观时的趋化策略。
