3-D worm tracker for freely moving C. elegans

PLoS One. 2013;8(2):e57484. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0057484. Epub 2013 Feb 21.

Abstract

The manner in which the nervous system regulates animal behaviors in natural environments is a fundamental issue in biology. To address this question, C. elegans has been widely used as a model animal for the analysis of various animal behaviors. Previous behavioral assays have been limited to two-dimensional (2-D) environments, confining the worm motion to a planar substrate that does not reflect three-dimensional (3-D) natural environments such as rotting fruits or soil. Here, we develop a 3-D worm tracker (3DWT) for freely moving C. elegans in 3-D environments, based on a stereoscopic configuration. The 3DWT provides us with a quantitative trajectory, including the position and movement direction of the worm in 3-D. The 3DWT is also capable of recording and visualizing postures of the moving worm in 3-D, which are more complex than those in 2-D. Our 3DWT affords new opportunities for understanding the nervous system function that regulates animal behaviors in natural 3-D environments.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Behavior, Animal / physiology*
  • Caenorhabditis elegans / physiology*
  • Humans
  • Image Processing, Computer-Assisted
  • Imaging, Three-Dimensional / instrumentation
  • Imaging, Three-Dimensional / methods*
  • Imaging, Three-Dimensional / statistics & numerical data
  • Motor Activity / physiology*
  • Movement / physiology*
  • Nervous System Physiological Phenomena
  • Video Recording

Grants and funding

This research was supported by the Creative Research Initiatives (Functional X-ray Imaging) of MEST/NRF (Ministry of Education, Science and Technology/National Research Foundation). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.