Behavioral and Functional Assays for Investigating Mechanisms of Noxious Cold Detection and Multimodal Sensory Processing in Larvae

To investigate cellular, molecular and behavioral mechanisms of noxious cold detection, we developed cold plate behavioral assays and quantitative means for evaluating the predominant noxious cold-evoked contraction behavior. To characterize neural activity in response to noxious cold, we implemented a GCaMP6-based calcium imaging assay enabling studies of intracellular calcium dynamics in intact larvae. We identified class III multidendritic (md) sensory neurons as multimodal sensors of innocuous mechanical and noxious cold stimuli and to dissect the mechanistic bases of multimodal sensory processing we developed two independent functional assays. First, we developed an optogenetic dose response assay to assess whether levels of neural activation contributes to the multimodal aspects of cold sensitive sensory neurons. Second, we utilized CaMPARI, a photo-switchable calcium integrator that stably converts fluorescence from green to red in presence of high intracellular calcium and photo-converting light, to assess functional differences in neural activation levels between innocuous mechanical and noxious cold stimuli. These novel assays enable investigations of behavioral and functional roles of peripheral sensory neurons and multimodal sensory processing in larvae.