This project explores the use of real-time optical techniques and computational analyses to measure the behavior of microscopic nematodes in three dimensions. Most studies of Caenorhabditis elegans behavior are limited to two dimensions because of the requirement for microscopy in imaging analyses, yet nematodes in their natural soil habitat move and behave in a three-dimensional environment, influenced by stimuli in all three dimensions. This project aims to develop a method to analyze thrashing frequencies and other behaviors in nematodes in real time by tracking the temporal periodicity of diffraction patterns as well as applying laser shadowing and modeling of diffraction patterns using computational methods. C. elegans is a powerful model organism for elucidating cellular and genetic mechanisms underlying development, neural circuitry and cell signaling. However, despite a wealth of information about gene-level mechanisms, very little is known about how sensory information provided by mechanosensory, chemosensory and thermosensory cells is integrated in a dynamic way to govern shifts in behavioral patterns.
The specific aims of this project are to: 1) Study locomotory behavior in three dimensions using laser shadowing and modeling of diffraction, 2) Develop experimental, computational and modeling approaches to analyze optical patterns that correspond to behavioral, physiological and morphological characteristics of nematodes in isolation and in contact with conspecifics and 3) Use the approaches developed in aims 1 and 2 to examine how nematodes alter their behavior when exposed to different environmental conditions they likely encounter in their natural habitat, including crowding, responses to gravity, changes in the wavelength of light, among others. The results from this project will provide new insights into free-swimming nematode behavior in three dimensions.
This project also involves collaboration among faculty and students both at Vassar and at Delaware State University, an institution of predominantly underrepresented students. The PI will develop a summer undergraduate exchange program to enable the students to experience the different educational environments. Further, this project lies at the intersections of physics and biology and, as such, will expose the students to novel integrative and multidisciplinary approaches to important scientific questions that require knowledge and skills in both optics and in biology.
