Large scale quantitative phenotyping of aversive behaviour and habituation in <i>C. elegans</i>

The nematode C. elegans has been influential in the development of the physics of behaviour, especially in methods for representing and analysing postural dynamics. To apply these methods in the context of genetic and drug screens, we need to be able to record behaviour with high resolution and throughput. We have combined robotic liquid handling, multi-camera imaging systems, and tracking software in a high-throughput pipeline that can record from about 500 samples simultaneously. Quantitative analysis of the spontaneous locomotion of C. elegans already yields a multidimensional phenotype that allows us to detect even subtle drug treatment-induced changes in its behaviour. We have added a wide-area, intense blue LED illumination to our recording system to increase the dimensionality of the explored phenotype space by both analysing the response elicited by a single stimulus, and studying simple of forms of learning such as habituation to repeated stimulations.