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PiVR: an affordable and versatile closed-loop platform to study unrestrained sensorimotor behavior

View ORCID ProfileDavid Tadres, View ORCID ProfileMatthieu Louis
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2019.12.20.885442
David Tadres
Neuroscience Research Institute & Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USAInstitute of Molecular Life Sciences, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
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Matthieu Louis
Neuroscience Research Institute & Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USADepartment of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA
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  • For correspondence: mlouis@ucsb.edu
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Abstract

Tools enabling closed-loop experiments are crucial to delineate causal relationships between the activity of genetically-labeled neurons and specific behaviors. We developed the Raspberry Pi Virtual Reality system (PiVR) to conduct closed-loop optogenetic stimulation of neural functions in unrestrained animals. PiVR is an experimental platform that operates at high-temporal resolution (>50 Hz) with low latencies (~10 ms), while being affordable (<$500) and easy to build (<6 hours). This tool was designed to be accessible to a wide public, from highschool students to professional researchers studying systems neuroscience. We illustrate the functionality of PiVR by focusing on sensory navigation in response to gradients of chemicals (chemotaxis) and light (phototaxis). We show how Drosophila flies perform negative chemotaxis by modulating their locomotor speed to avoid locations associated with optogenetically-evoked bitter taste. In Drosophila larvae, we use innate positive chemotaxis to compare orientation behavior elicited by real- and virtual-odor gradients with static shapes as well as by turbulent virtual-odor plumes. Finally, we examine how positive phototaxis emerges in zebrafish larvae from the modulation of turning maneuvers during the ascent of virtual white-light gradients. Besides its application to study chemotaxis and phototaxis, PiVR is a versatile tool designed to bolster efforts to map and to functionally characterize neural circuits.

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Posted December 21, 2019.
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PiVR: an affordable and versatile closed-loop platform to study unrestrained sensorimotor behavior
David Tadres, Matthieu Louis
bioRxiv 2019.12.20.885442; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2019.12.20.885442
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PiVR: an affordable and versatile closed-loop platform to study unrestrained sensorimotor behavior
David Tadres, Matthieu Louis
bioRxiv 2019.12.20.885442; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2019.12.20.885442

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