Modulation of locomotor activity in larval zebrafish during light adaptation

Burgess, Harold A.; Granato, Michael

doi:10.1242/jeb.003939

Cited by 474 publications

(535 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…Zebrafish turns are historically named based on the shape of the tail. In both slow and fast orientations to prey described here, the maximum curvature is located nearest the tail, which more closely resembles variations of 'J-bends' (McElligott and O'Malley, 2005) than it does other identified turning responses to sensory stimuli, like 'O-bends' and 'C-starts' (Budick and O'Malley, 2000;Burgess and Granato, 2007;Liu et al, 2012). The zebrafish spinal cord is organized somatotopically, with each body segment innervated by a local pool of axial motoneurons (Myers, 1985).…”

Section: Circuit Mechanisms Governing Approachmentioning

confidence: 52%

Visually guided gradation of prey capture movements in larval zebrafish

Patterson

Abraham

MacIver

et al. 2013

Journal of Experimental Biology

107

155

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SUMMARYA mechanistic understanding of goal-directed behavior in vertebrates is hindered by the relative inaccessibility and size of their nervous systems. Here, we have studied the kinematics of prey capture behavior in a highly accessible vertebrate model organism, the transparent larval zebrafish (Danio rerio), to assess whether they use visual cues to systematically adjust their movements. We found that zebrafish larvae scale the speed and magnitude of turning movements according to the azimuth of one of their standard prey, paramecia. They also bias the direction of subsequent swimming movements based on prey azimuth and select forward or backward movements based on the prey's direction of travel. Once within striking distance, larvae generate either ram or suction capture behaviors depending on their distance from the prey. From our experimental estimations of ocular receptive fields, we ascertained that the ultimate decision to consume prey is likely a function of the progressive vergence of the eyes that places the target in a proximal binocular 'capture zone'. By repeating these experiments in the dark, we demonstrate that paramecia are only consumed if they contact the anterior extremities of larvae, which triggers ocular vergence and tail movements similar to close proximity captures in lit conditions. These observations confirm the importance of vision in the graded movements we observe leading up to capture of more distant prey in the light, and implicate somatosensation in captures in the absence of light. We discuss the implications of these findings for future work on the neural control of visually guided behavior in zebrafish. Supplementary material available online at

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Section: Circuit Mechanisms Governing Approachmentioning

confidence: 52%

Visually guided gradation of prey capture movements in larval zebrafish

Patterson

Abraham

MacIver

et al. 2013

Journal of Experimental Biology

107

155

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…These swimming bouts can be grouped into a small number of distinct categories, which have been characterized in detail 8,9,26 . We analyzed the visually evoked responses at the level of single swim bouts.…”

Section: Motor Patterns Underlying the Optomotor Responsementioning

confidence: 99%

Control of visually guided behavior by distinct populations of spinal projection neurons

et al. 2008

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A basic question in the field of motor control is how different actions are represented by activity in spinal projection neurons. We used a new behavioral assay to identify visual stimuli that specifically drive basic motor patterns in zebrafish. These stimuli evoked consistent patterns of neural activity in the neurons projecting to the spinal cord, which we could map throughout the entire population using in vivo two-photon calcium imaging. We found that stimuli that drive distinct behaviors activated distinct subsets of projection neurons, consisting, in some cases, of just a few cells. This stands in contrast to the distributed activation seen for more complex behaviors. Furthermore, targeted cell by cell ablations of the neurons associated with evoked turns abolished the corresponding behavioral response. This description of the functional organization of the zebrafish motor system provides a framework for identifying the complete circuit underlying a vertebrate behavior.In a behaving animal, the brain communicates its intentions to muscles via the pattern of activity in descending projection neurons 1 . In vertebrates, these cells respond to the detection and processing of sensory stimuli and transmit their motor command to the local networks of the spinal cord, which in turn initiate and coordinate muscle contraction 2 . A fundamental question in neuroscience is how the commands that initiate behaviors are encoded in the activation of these projection neurons 3-5 .The spinal projection system of fish provides an excellent model for studying this code 6 . A diverse range of swimming behaviors can be seen in 6-d-old zebrafish 7-9 that are mediated by a descending projection to the spinal cord consisting of fewer than 300 neurons 10,11 . These neurons are easily labeled with fluorescent indicators 12 , optically accessible with modern imaging techniques and arranged in a stereotyped pattern such that the same cells or groups of cells can easily be identified from one fish to the next 13 . These neurons are morphologically diverse, with distinct dendritic fields and axonal projection patterns 13,14 , suggesting that they serve different behavioral functions. Nevertheless, determining how differing patterns of activity in these spinal projection neurons produce different motor outputs has proved to be difficult. 23,24 , the actual command is encoded in distributed activity throughout the population of control neurons 2 .The swimming behaviors of zebrafish, including the complex sequence of turns and swims that make up the escape response, can be broken down into basic kinematic elements 8 . It is possible that the motor commands for these basic behaviors originate from distinct populations of neurons, which when combined would appear as a `distributed command'. We found that whole-field visual motion, with the direction dynamically locked to the fish's body axis, is able to selectively evoke some of these basic swim patterns. Calcium imaging of stimulus-evoked responses in the complete population of n...

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“…The visual system can recognize a predator at a distance (Dill, 1974), but requires substantial neuronal processing that can delay an escape. For example, it takes most zebrafish (Danio rerio) larvae at least 200 ms to react to a visual stimulus (Burgess and Granato, 2007), which is about an order of magnitude longer than the duration of mouth opening during suction feeding (Wainwright et al, 2001;Day et al, 2007). In contrast, prey fish can respond to a flow stimulus in less than 4 ms (Liu and Fetcho, 1999) and thereby escape before the predator opens its jaws (Stewart et al, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prey fish escape by sensing the bow wave of a predator

Stewart

Nair

Jiang

et al. 2014

Journal of Experimental Biology

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Prey fish possess a remarkable ability to sense and evade an attack from a larger fish. Despite the importance of these events to the biology of fishes, it remains unclear how sensory cues stimulate an effective evasive maneuver. Here, we show that larval zebrafish (Danio rerio) evade predators using an escape response that is stimulated by the water flow generated by an approaching predator. Measurements of the high-speed responses of larvae in the dark to a robotic predator suggest that larvae respond to the subtle flows in front of the predator using the lateral line system. This flow, known as the bow wave, was visualized and modeled with computational fluid dynamics. According to the predictions of the model, larvae direct their escape away from the side of their body exposed to more rapid flow. This suggests that prey fish use a flow reflex that enables predator evasion by generating a directed maneuver at high speed. These findings demonstrate a sensory-motor mechanism that underlies a behavior that is crucial to the ecology and evolution of fishes.

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Modulation of locomotor activity in larval zebrafish during light adaptation

Cited by 474 publications

References 49 publications

Visually guided gradation of prey capture movements in larval zebrafish

Visually guided gradation of prey capture movements in larval zebrafish

Control of visually guided behavior by distinct populations of spinal projection neurons

Prey fish escape by sensing the bow wave of a predator

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