Project Details
Projekt
2 Photon Microscope System for in vivo Studies
Subject Area
Neurosciences
Term
Funded in 2019
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 432704004
The principles of brain function are an important topic for basic knowledge as well as applications such as health and robotics. The brain evolved to control locomotion, and synchronization between movement and its sensory consequences has always been present. Sensory feedback has also been synchronous across each of the individual senses, including visual signals, proprioception, the vestibular sense, and mechanical sensation. Such physical coupling between action and perception – a constant throughout evolutionary time – has profoundly shaped the way the brain works.The newly established professorship of Andrew Straw investigates neural circuits and behavioral algorithms within the context of freely moving animals, especially the important genetic model organism Drosophila. By building advanced technical systems, the group has pushed the methodological state of the art to bring tools from molecular biology and neural circuit investigation to the study of animal behavior. In 2014, they published the “Fly Mind Alteration Device” in which a precisely targeted laser maintains its position on a freely moving fly. Using this device, Straw and colleagues activated small numbers of neurons expressing genetically introduced optogenetic and thermogenetic actuators of cellular activity. In 2017, they published a virtual reality system for freely moving animals, allowing precise visual stimulation to flies, fish and mice. These animals were “immersed” in experimenter-controlled virtual worlds and programmed stimuli to be associated with self-motion. Both technical developments were accompanied by initial scientific results made possible by these inventions and enabled scientists to experiments in freely moving animals which were previously only possible in rigidly restrained animals. These techniques and their derivates are now being put to use in many labs around the world.This proposal procures a two-photon in-vivo microscope which is essential for further scientific and technical progress in the Straw Lab. Current projects, such as a high throughput screen using neurogenetics and virtual reality for freely flying flies have identified neurons involved in visuo-motor control. Calcium imaging of these neurons during visual stimulation will allow us to characterize visual responses in these neurons and thus to link circuit physiology with naturalistic behavioral performance. Planned projects are to build a novel brain imaging system to record calcium activity at cellular resolution in freely moving flies and fish.
DFG Programme
Major Research Instrumentation
Major Instrumentation
2-Photonen-Mikroskopie-System für in-vivo Studien
Instrumentation Group
5090 Spezialmikroskope
Applicant Institution
Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
