What Does the Chip Do. It restrains single worms inside a microfluidic trap and exposes their nose to a chemical (liquid) stimulus. The user manually loads/unloads worms to the chip one-by-one and selects the duration of the stimulus with sub-second accuracy.

Applications. This chip is ideal for monitoring activity (e.g. through calcium imaging) from single or multiple neurons using high resolution fluorescence microscopy.

The Chip Design.  The 'Olfactory' chip is a single layer chip that integrates a microfuidic worm trap with a stimulus delivery, microfluidic network. The worm trap comes in different sizes to accommodate worms of different ages (L2 and above).

References:

- Chronis N., Zimmer M., and Bargmann C.I., ‘Microfluidics for in vivo imaging neuronal and behavioral activity in Caenorhabditis elegans, Nature Methods’, vol.4 no.9, September 2007, p. 727-731. 

- Chalasani S., Chronis N., Tsunozaki M., Gray J., Goodman M., Bargmann C., ‘Dissecting a neural circuit for food-seeking behavior in Caenorhabditis elegans’, Nature 450, 63-70 (2007). 

What Does the Chip Do. It restrains single worms inside a microfluidic trap and exposes their nose to a chemical (liquid) stimulus. The operation of the this chip is similar to the operation of the standard olfactory chip, but the loading/unloading of the worm is performed in an automated fashion.

Applications. This chip is ideal for recording stimulus evoked responses from large number of worms. It is compatible with any type of high resolution fluorescence microscopy.

The Chip Design.  The chip is an modified version of the standard 'Olfactory' chip. A microfluidic channel (the 'flushing' channel) has been added to the original design to facilitate the unloading of the worms from the microfluidic trap. It allows the automated loading /unloading of single worms through an electronically controlled valve.

References:

 -  Chokshi T.V., Bazopoulou D., Chronis N., ''An automated microfluidic platform for calcium imaging of chemosensory neurons in C. elegans' Lab on a Chip 2010, Oct21; 10(20): 2758-63

 - Bazopoulou D., Chaudhury A.R., Pantazis A., Chronis N., ' An automated compound screening for anti-aging effects on the function of C. elegans sensory neurons' Scientific Reports 2017, August 24; 7(1): 9403

What Does the Chip Do. It restricts individual Drosopshila larva inside a microtrap by slightly (mechanically) squeezing them. The larva can still make micromovements but it cannot escape (the larva always remains in the field of view of the microscope objective).

Applications. High-resolution, live imaging, microscopy where short-term continuous immobilization (< 30min) of 3rd instar larva is needed.

The Chip Design. This single PDMS chip utilizes a microtrap and a sealing microchannnel.The thickness of the microtrap is sligthy smaller than the thickness of a 3rd instar larva. When vacuum is applied to the sealing microchannel, the PDMS comes in contact with the glass coverslip, squeezing the larva body. Please notice that the glass coveslip and the PDMS chip are not bonded but they held together only when vacuum is present.

Reference:

 - Mishra B., Ghannad-Rezaie M.; Li J., Wang X., Hao Y., Ye B.; Chronis N.; Collins, C.A., ‘Using microfluidics chips for live imaging and study of injury responses in Drosophila larvae’, Journal of visualized experiments (JoVE), Issue:84, Pages:e50998, February 2014