Spontaneous Behaviors and Wall-Curvature Lead to Apparent Wall Preference in Planarian
Fig 6
Planarian wall preference depends on the curvature of the wall.
(A) Schematic illustration of donut-shaped assay field, which contains both a concave curve and a convex curve. (B) Trajectories and heat map of the simulation in the donut-shaped assay field. (C) Trajectories and heat map of actual planarian movement in the donut-shaped assay field. (D) Preference index in the convex-curve region relative and in the concave-curve region. n = 10. t = 300 sec. ***, p < 0.001; **, p < 0.005; ns, not significant in the Wilcoxon signed rank test or Student's t-test. (E) The mean time between reaching the wall and detaching from the wall. n = 10. t = 300 sec. ***, p < 0.005; **, p < 0.01; ns, not significant in Student's t-test. (F) Trajectories of planarian movement in the circular field of a 60-mm, a 90-mm, and a 200-mm circular field. The curvature of the 60-mm dish is stronger than that of the 200-mm dish. Representative trajectories are indicated by red lines. (G) Wall-preference indexes in the wall region of three different circular fields. n = 5. t = 600 sec. ***, p < 0.001; *, p < 0.05 in Student's t-test.