Journal: Journal of neuroscience methods

Article Title: A novel assay to evaluate action selection in escape behavior.

doi: 10.1016/j.jneumeth.2018.04.019

Figure Lengend Snippet: Figure 1: Visually-evoked tethered escape behavior assay. (A) Non-flying tethered flies are presented a looming stimulus, modeled after an object approaching at a constant velocity. A high speed IR camera records behavioral responses, a wingbeat tachometer records flight response characteristics, and a flight stop arm interrupts wing flight path following each trial. (B) Time course of stimulus expansion for r/v = 40 ms, from a 10° to 78° visual angle , with t = 0 at stimulus onset. (C) Data acquisition pathway for tethered assay. Data acquisition device was controlled using the Wavesurfer data acquisition package for MATLAB. Stimulus presentation timing was controlled using Psychtoolbox for MATLAB. (D) Annotated components of the escape sequence for both long or short duration escapes.

Article Snippet: Assay control was implemented using custom MATLAB scripts in conjunction with the Wavesurfer data acquisition package for MATLAB (http://wavesurfer.janelia.org/) and the Psychophysics Toolbox extensions (http://psychtoolbox.org/, Brainard, 1997; Kleiner et al., 2007; Pelli, 1997).

Techniques: Behavioral Assay, Sequencing