Quantifying Planarian Behavior as an Introduction to Object Tracking and Signal Processing

Abstract

Answers to mechanistic questions about biological phenomena require fluency in a variety of molecular biology techniques and physical concepts. Here, we present an interdisciplinary approach to introducing undergraduate students to an important problem in the areas of animal behavior and neuroscience—the neuronal control of animal behavior. In this lab module, students explore planarian behavior by quantitative image and data analysis with freely available software and low-cost resources. Planarians are ∼1–2-cm-long aquatic free-living flatworms famous for their regeneration abilities. They are inexpensive and easy to maintain, handle, and perturb, and their fairly large size allows for image acquisition with a webcam, which makes this lab module accessible and scalable. Our lab module integrates basic physical concepts such as center of mass, velocity and speed, periodic signals, and time series analysis in the context of a biological system. The module is designed to attract students with diverse disciplinary backgrounds. It challenges the students to form hypotheses about behavior and equips them with a basic but broadly applicable toolkit to achieve this quantitatively. We give a detailed description of the necessary resources and show how to implement the module. We also provide suggestions for advanced exercises and possible extensions. Finally, we provide student feedback from a pilot implementation.

Let it rip: the mechanics of self-bisection in asexual planarians determines their population reproductive strategies

“…Images were recorded at 7-10 frames per second (fps). Three to four experimental setups were run in parallel, each containing 2-4 planarians, depending on the size of the arena (wells of 6-well plates, 30 mm Petri dishes, contact lens containers [19], or Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) blocks [10]. For highresolution imaging of rupture, we used 2 planarians in contact lens containers (Wohlk Contactlinsen GmbH, Schonkirchen, Germany).…”

New Worm on the Block: Planarians in (Neuro)Toxicology

“…The trajectories can also be used to determine the number of turns or head wiggles (Talbot and Schötz, 2011). Protocols for tracking the COM of planarians using freeware and requiring no coding experience have recently been made available (Inoue and Agata, 2022; Sabry, Rabeler, Ireland, Bayingana, and Collins, 2020; Stowell et al., 2021).…”

“…With the toxicology field moving away from mammalian and vertebrate testing, teaching the next generation of scientists about the value of alternative invertebrate models such as planarians for toxicology and pharmacology studies have become increasingly important. Easy‐to‐implement laboratory protocols have been developed to enable low‐cost, hands‐on experiments for school and college students (Pagán, Coudron, and Kaneria, 2009; Stowell, Goel, Shetty, Noveral, and Collins, 2021).…”