Chew, Yee LianWalker, Denise S.Towlson, Emma K.Vértes, Petra E.Yan, GangBarabasi, Albert-LaszloSchafer, William R.2017-12-062017Chew, Yee Lian, Denise S. Walker, Emma K. Towlson, Petra E. Vértes, Gang Yan, Albert-László Barabási, and William R. Schafer. 2017. “Recordings of Caenorhabditis elegans locomotor behaviour following targeted ablation of single motorneurons.” Scientific Data 4 (1): 170156. doi:10.1038/sdata.2017.156. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2017.156.http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:34492258Lesioning studies have provided important insight into the functions of brain regions in humans and other animals. In the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, with a small nervous system of 302 identified neurons, it is possible to generate lesions with single cell resolution and infer the roles of individual neurons in behaviour. Here we present a dataset of ~300 video recordings representing the locomotor behaviour of animals carrying single-cell ablations of 5 different motorneurons. Each file includes a raw video of approximately 27,000 frames; each frame has also been segmented to yield the position, contour, and body curvature of the tracked animal. These recordings can be further analysed using publicly-available software to extract features relevant to behavioural phenotypes. This dataset therefore represents a useful resource for probing the neural basis of behaviour in C. elegans, a resource we hope to augment in the future with ablation recordings for additional neurons.en-USImagingCaenorhabditis elegansMotor controlBehavioural methodsJournal Article2017-12-0610.1038/sdata.2017.156