Single-synapse Ablation and Long-term Imaging in Live C. Elegans

Overview

Journal J Neurosci Methods

Specialty Neurology

Date 2008 Jun 27

PMID 18579213

Citations 23

Authors

Peter B Allen

Allyson E Sgro

Daniel L Chao

Byron E Doepker

J Scott Edgar

Kang Shen

Daniel T Chiu

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Synapses are individually operated, computational units for neural communication. To manipulate physically individual synapses in a living organism, we have developed a laser ablation technique for removing single synapses in live neurons in C. elegans that operates without apparent damage to the axon. As a complementary technique, we applied microfluidic immobilization of C. elegans to facilitate long-term fluorescence imaging and observation of neuronal development. With this technique, we directly demonstrated the existence of competition between developing synapses in the HSNL motor neuron.

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