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Activation and measurement of free whisking in the lightly anesthetized rodent

Nature Protocols volume 9, pages 1792–1802 (2014)Cite this article

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Abstract

The rodent vibrissa system is a widely used experimental model of active sensation and motor control. Vibrissa-based touch in rodents involves stereotypic, rhythmic sweeping of the vibrissae as the animal explores its environment. Although pharmacologically induced rhythmic movements have long been used to understand the neural circuitry that underlies a variety of rhythmic behaviors, including locomotion, digestion and ingestion, these techniques have not been available for active sensory movements such as whisking. However, recent work that delineated the location of the central pattern generator for whisking has enabled pharmacological control over this behavior. Here we specify a protocol for the pharmacological induction of rhythmic vibrissa movements that mimic exploratory whisking. The rhythmic vibrissa movements are induced by local injection of a glutamatergic agonist, kainic acid. This protocol produces coordinated rhythmic vibrissa movements that are sustained for several hours in the anesthetized mouse or rat and thus provides unprecedented experimental control in studies related to vibrissa-based neuronal circuitry.

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Figure 1: Target site for local injection of kainic acid to produce rhythmic vibrissa movements.
Figure 2: Diagram of experimental procedures to induce and measure kainic acid–induced vibrissa movements.
Figure 3: Kainic acid injection produces rhythmic vibrissa movements in rat.
Figure 4: Kainic acid injection produces rhythmic vibrissa movements in mouse.
Figure 5: Juxtacellular recordings in somatosensory brain regions during kainic acid–induced vibrissa movements.
Figure 6: Intracellular recording in a facial motoneuron during kainic acid–induced vibrissa movements.
Figure 7: Bilateral kainic acid injection produces independent vibrissa movements on the left and right sides of the face.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NS058668 and NS082097), the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (EB003832), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (grant MT-5877) and the US-Israeli Binational Foundation (grant 2011432).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA

    Jeffrey D Moore, Anastasia Kurnikova & David Kleinfeld

  2. Department of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, Laval University, Québec City, Québec, Canada

    Martin Deschênes

  3. Graduate Program in Neurosciences, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA

    Anastasia Kurnikova & David Kleinfeld

  4. Section of Neurobiology, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA

    David Kleinfeld

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Contributions

M.D., D.K. and J.D.M. planned the experiments; M.D., A.K. and J.D.M. performed the experiments; A.K. and J.D.M. analyzed the data; D.K. and J.D.M. wrote the paper; D.K. dealt with the myriad university organizations that govern animal health and welfare, surgical procedures, and laboratory health and safety issues that include specific oversight of chemicals, controlled substances, human cell lines, lasers and viruses.

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Correspondence to David Kleinfeld.

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Moore, J., Deschênes, M., Kurnikova, A. et al. Activation and measurement of free whisking in the lightly anesthetized rodent. Nat Protoc 9, 1792–1802 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nprot.2014.119

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