Encode the “STOP” command by photo-stimulation for precise control of rat-robot

Studies on behavior control are important for bio-robots designation. For auto or manual navigation of the bio-robots, the accuracy of the command execution is especially critical. In this paper, we reported a precise “STOP” command for the rat-robots by optical stimulation of the central nervous system (CNS). We labeled dorsolateral periaqueductal gray (dlPAG) neurons with light sensitive channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2) and directly probed the optical fiber to reactivate these neurons. The rats showed freezing behavior only upon the optical stimulation with an appropriate range of laser intensity and stimulation frequency. Neuron spikes and local field potential (LFP) were simultaneously recorded with optical stimulation by optrodes on free moving rat-robots. Together, our findings demonstrated the utility of deep brain optical stimulation for the stopping behavior of rat-robot control and indicated a potential application of optogenetics for precise control of bio-robots in further work.