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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2015 Jun 4.
Published in final edited form as: Neuron. 2014 Jun 4;82(5):1115–1128. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2014.05.010

Figure 5. Calcium imaging of downstream interneurons in freely navigating worms.

Figure 5

(A) Representative AIB motion trajectory and its GCaMP6 calcium signal in a worm freely navigating a linear salt gradient. AIB calcium activity increases during reversals.

(B) Heat map of AIB calcium dynamics when C. elegans navigates below or above the setpoint (50 mM NaCl). Left and middle panels: temporal salt gradient experienced by worms during reversals (left panel, rows) and the corresponding calcium signal in AIB (middle panel). Right panel: mean values of AIB calcium signals during the onset of reversals (28 events from n = 10 animals, mean ± SEM).

(C, D) AIB (C) and AVA (D) exhibit distinct temporal calcium dynamics during reversals. Solid lines and shading represent mean ± SEM (n ≥ 7 animals).

(E) Representative AIY motion trajectory and its ratiometric calcium signal (R) in a freely crawling worm. Inset plots the average AIY calcium signal during a 20 s course as a function of dispersion speed, defined as 〈[(t + τ) − r(t)]/τ 〉, where 〈…〉 is the average over all t and τ within a 20 second movie.

(F) Mean values of AIY calcium signal during the onset of reversals (30 events from n = 8 animals, Mean ± SEM).

(G) AIY calcium signal as a function of dispersion speed (mean ± SEM, n = 8 animals totaling ~ 80 minutes of recording). Worms with faster dispersion speed (> 80 µm/s) exhibit higher AIY calcium signal (Wilcoxon rank sum test, p< 0.000005).