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