Hardware

FlyVISTA aims to capture micron scale behaviors over many hours in freely behaving flies.

Behavioral Recordings

Following parts are used to record videos of freely moving animals:

Chamber Setup

Behavioral chambers are built from the following items:

  • 3D printed chamber.
  • 3D printed base plate to hold the chamber.
  • Windows.
    • Acrylic, 7x7 mm with a 2 mm thickness OR
    • Glass, 8 mm diameter (CS8R, Warner Instruments)
  • Magnets 1/4” x 1/8” x 1/16” thick (B421 - K&J Magnetics)
Isometric View
Isometric View
Front View
Front View

To capture behaviors at a high resolution for freely moving flies, we utilized 3D printed chambers (see above). These chambers are ~7x4.9 mm (wxh) at the front and 6.7x4.1 mm at the back. A printable model can be downloaded here. The depth of the chamber is 2.6 mm.

We tested a variety of different chamber sizes to limit the variations in the pose of the animal while trying to preserve the behavioral integrity. We noticed that fly requires at least 2 mm depth to comfortably behave. In terms of width and height, we found that 4 mm to be close to the limit. Ideally, fly should be able to comfortably walk around the chamber.

Two types of windows are used: glass and acrylic. Acrylic windows were initially preferred due to cost and durability, however acrylic is resistant to siliconizing agents (e.g. rainx, Sigmacote etc) which is needed to prevent the animal from walking on the window surface. Thus, we later preferred glass coverslips. Here is the model of the chamber that is compatible with these.

Model for the baseplate can be found here. Individual chambers can be secured to the baseplate using the abovementioned magnets. This allows quick swapping of the chambers.

Loading Flies

Flies are individually loaded to the chambers using either a mouth pipet or a small vacuum pump Fluoro Mechanics - FV10110. A 5 μl glass capillary filled with 2.5% yeast 2.5% sugar solution can be secured at the food port using a shortened pipette tip.

Camera and Lighting

FLIR Blackfly 23S3M cameras are used to image the fly. A telecentric lens coupled with a longpass filter is attached to the camera.