Bio-Protocol (Mar 2018)

A Fluorescent Dye Method Suitable for Visualization of One or More Rat Whiskers

  • Jacopo Rigosa,
  • Alessandro Lucantonio,
  • Giovanni Noselli,
  • Arash Fassihi,
  • Erik Zorzin,
  • Fabrizio Manzino,
  • Francesca Pulecchi,
  • Mathew Diamond

DOI
https://doi.org/10.21769/BioProtoc.2749
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 8, no. 5

Abstract

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Visualization and tracking of the facial whiskers is critical to many studies of rodent behavior. High-speed videography is the most robust methodology for characterizing whisker kinematics, but whisker visualization is challenging due to the low contrast of the whisker against its background. Recently, we showed that fluorescent dye(s) can be applied to enhance visualization and tracking of whisker(s) (Rigosa et al., 2017), and this protocol provides additional details on the technique.