Mia Quintana
Pronouns:
Research Mentor(s): Bing Ye
Co-Presenter:
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Life Sciences Institute, University of Michigan / Medicine
Presentation Date: April 20
Presentation Type: Poster
Session: Session 5 – 3:40pm – 4:30 pm
Room: League Ballroom
Authors: Mia Quintana, Yujia Hu, Bing Ye
Presenter: 13
Abstract
A study was undertaken to analyze the neural circuitry underlying how Drosophila larvae respond to noxious stimuli (‘feeling pain’). Larval nociceptors, which are the primary sensory neurons to sense noxious stimuli in larvae, were activated optogenetically. The optogenetic activation of larval nociceptors was achieved by a protein (channelrhodopsin) that activates neurons upon illumination of blue light. When the blue light was on, these larvae showed characteristic escaping behaviors such as curling and rolling. These behaviors were automatically analyzed by a novel software called LabGym. Next, different types of interneurons that convey information from nociceptors to the brain were inhibited one by one during larval escaping behaviors. These experiments are expected to identify candidate interneurons that are critical for transforming the noxious stimuli to the proper escaping responses, since the escaping response would be impaired if a key interneuron was inhibited. This study is a part of the growing research on systematically analyzing neural circuits that transform sensory inputs to behavior outputs. The tools from this study will also be used to determine whether and how the mechanosensory inputs interact with nociceptive inputs at the circuit level.
Biomedical Sciences, Engineering, Natural/Life Sciences, Natural/Life Sciences
