TITLE:
Fluorescent Voltage Imaging Technique for the Measurement of Molluscan Neural Activities
AUTHORS:
Yuuta Hamasaki, Makoto Hosoi, Shogo Nakada, Tomoya Shimokawa, Minoru Saito
KEYWORDS:
Fluorescent Voltage Imaging Technique; Neural Activity; Mollusk; S/N ratio; Olfactory Processing Feeding Rhythm
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Biophysics,
Vol.3 No.1A,
February
27,
2013
ABSTRACT:
The electrophysiological methods using microelectrodes are not appropriate for the simultaneous measurement of neural activities of many neurons. To overcome the difficulty, the fluorescent imaging technique using voltage sensitive dyes can be a powerful technique. The voltage sensitive dyes, however, generally exhibit a relatively small change in their fluorescence intensities, resulting in a low S/N ratio. Additionally, they often exhibit photobleaching and phototoxity. We have therefore improved the fluorescent voltage imaging technique by using a LED as the light source and an electron multiplying (EM)-CCD camera as the fluorescence detector. In this study, we applied our imaging system for the measurement of two kind of molluscan neural activities; one of which is involved in the olfactory processing of the land slug Limax valentianus and the other is involved in the feeding rhythm of the pond snail Lymnaea stagnalis. The system enabled us to measure the neural activities for a long time with a high speed and a high S/N ratio, and the obtained results showed some new physiological findings.