Magneto-thermal genetic deep brain stimulation of motor behaviors in awake, freely moving mice

  1. Rahul Munshi
  2. Shahnaz M Qadri
  3. Qian Zhang
  4. Idoia Castellanos Rubio
  5. Pablo del Pino
  6. Arnd Pralle  Is a corresponding author
  1. University at Buffalo, United States
  2. Philipps University Marburg, Germany
  3. Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Spain

Abstract

Establishing how neurocircuit activation causes particular behaviors requires modulating the activity of specific neurons. Here, we demonstrate that magnetothermal genetic stimulation provides tetherless deep brain activation sufficient to evoke motor behavior in awake mice. The approach uses alternating magnetic fields to heat superparamagnetic nanoparticles on the neuronal membrane. Neurons heat-sensitized by expressing TRPV1 are activated with magnetic field application. Magnetothermal genetic stimulation in the motor cortex evoked ambulation, deep brain stimulation in the striatum caused rotation around the body-axis, and stimulation near the ridge between ventral and dorsal striatum caused freezing-of-gait. The duration of the behavior correlated tightly with field application. This approach provides genetically and spatially targetable, repeatable and temporarily precise activation of deep-brain circuits without need for surgical implantation of any device.

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Rahul Munshi

    Department of Physics, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  2. Shahnaz M Qadri

    Department of Physics, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  3. Qian Zhang

    Department of Physics, Philipps University Marburg, Marburg, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  4. Idoia Castellanos Rubio

    Department of Physics, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  5. Pablo del Pino

    CIQUS, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-1318-6839
  6. Arnd Pralle

    Department of Physics, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, United States
    For correspondence
    apralle@buffalo.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-6079-109X

Funding

National Institute of Mental Health (1R01MH094730)

  • Arnd Pralle

Human Frontier Science Program (RGP0052/2012)

  • Arnd Pralle

National Institute of Mental Health (1R01MH111872)

  • Arnd Pralle

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Animal experimentation: This study was performed in strict accordance with the recommendations in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals of the National Institutes of Health. All of the animals were handled according to approved institutional animal care and use committee (IACUC) protocols (PHY01051Y and PHY02103N) of the University at Buffalo. The protocol was approved by the Committee on the Ethics of Animal Experiments of the University at Buffalo. All surgery was performed andKetamine anesthesia, and every effort was made to minimize suffering.

Copyright

© 2017, Munshi 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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  1. Rahul Munshi
  2. Shahnaz M Qadri
  3. Qian Zhang
  4. Idoia Castellanos Rubio
  5. Pablo del Pino
  6. Arnd Pralle
(2017)
Magneto-thermal genetic deep brain stimulation of motor behaviors in awake, freely moving mice
eLife 6:e27069.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.27069

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.27069

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