Quantitative evaluation of IR-induced effects on locomotory behavior in

Suzuki, Michiyo; Hattori, Yuya; Sakashita, Tetsuya; Kikuchi, Masahiro; Funayama, Tomoo; Yokota, Yuichiro; Tsuji, Toshio*; Kobayashi, Yasuhiko

We examined the effects of ionizing radiation (IR) on locomotory behavior using , and reported an IR-induced reduction of locomotory rate in the absence of food. In the previous experiments, wild-type animals were irradiated with -rays in the whole body, and measured the motility using "body bends" (the number of bends in the anterior body region at 20-s intervals). However, the IR-induced effects in the central and posterior body region were not evaluated by the body bends. Therefore, we propose a novel method evaluating the motility of whole body by using the video-based analysis. Animals were irradiated with graded doses of Co -rays. Immediately after irradiation, we video-recorded the animals, and analyzed the trajectories and bends at 17 points of the body. The proposed method provides some novel insight about the IR-induced changes on 's locomotion.