Neuronal Dynamics During Isoflurane Induction in <i>Caenorhabditis elegans</i>

Background: continuously during induction of anesthesia with isoflurane. Methods: worms expressing pan-neuronal nuclear RFP and cytosolic GCaMP6s were imaged with light sheet microscopy to measure single cell activity in the majority of neurons in the animal's head during induction via isoflurane exposure. Stable concentrations of isoflurane were maintained throughout the experiment by measured flow vaporization of isoflurane into a specially designed gas enclosure compatible with the imaging system. Building on our previous work investigating emergence from anesthesia, we analyzed ensemble neuronal activity, spectrograms of frequency over time, and metrics of information flow between neurons. Results: Induction of isoflurane anesthesia caused a progressive reduction in neuronal activity over the course of 40 minutes. Spectrograms indicated a loss of bulk signal power across all frequencies, notably in low frequencies too. State Decoupling and Internal Predictability were among the most useful metrics for discriminating the anesthetized state, demonstrating induction kinetics that are the inverse of emergence. However, each animal does not arrive at the anesthetized state at the same time; response times are highly individualized. Conclusions: nematodes is in essence the reverse of emergence. Induction however occurs more rapidly and shows marked variability between individuals. Future genetic studies will show which molecular targets define sensitivity to volatile anesthetics like isoflurane.