Dye-enhanced visualization of rat whiskers for behavioral studies
- International School for Advanced Studies, Italy
Abstract
Visualization and tracking of the facial whiskers is required in an increasing number of rodent studies. Though many approaches have been employed, only high-speed videography has proven adequate for measuring whisker motion and deformation during interaction with an object. However, whisker visualization and tracking is challenging for multiple reasons, primary among them the low contrast of the whisker against its background. Here we demonstrate a fluorescent dye method suitable for visualization of one or more rat whiskers. The process makes the dyed whisker(s) easily visible against a dark background. The coloring does not influence the behavioral performance of rats trained on a vibrissal vibrotactile discrimination task, nor does it affect the whiskers’ mechanical properties.
Data availability
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Dye-enhanced visualization of rat whiskers for behavioral studiesAvailable at Dryad Digital Repository under a CC0 Public Domain Dedication.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
Ministero dell'Istruzione, dell'Università e della Ricerca (GA 280778)
- Mathew E Diamond
International School for Advanced Studies (NOFYSAS 2012)
- Giovanni Noselli
Human Frontier Science Program (RG0015/2013)
- Mathew E Diamond
European Commission (project 294498)
- Mathew E Diamond
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Animal experimentation: The rats were under the care of a consulting veterinarian. Protocols followed the guidelines ofEU Directive 2010/63/EU, established as Italian decree 26/2014, and were approved by theSISSA Ethics Committee and the Italian Ministry of Health license numbers 569/2015-PR and570/2015-PR.
Copyright
© 2017, Rigosa et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Dye-enhanced visualization of rat whiskers for behavioral studies
eLife 6:e25290.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.25290
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