Understanding the visual demands of underwater habitats for aquatic animals used in neuroscience research
Schedule
Friday, July 10, 2020
15:00 UTC
Tod Thiele and Dr. Emily Cooper
Prof
Tod Thiele: University of Toronto Scarborough; Emily Cooper: University of California, Berkeley
Host: Sussex Visions
Recording
Open recording
Event Information
Recording
Available
Host
Sussex Visions
Duration
70 minutes
Abstract
Zebrafish and cichlids are popular models in visual neuroscience, due to their amenability to advanced research tools and their diverse set of visually guided behaviours. It is often asserted that animals’ neural systems are adapted to the statistical regularities in their natural environments, but relatively little is known about the visual spatiotemporal features in the underwater habitats that nurtured these fish. To address this gap, we have embarked on an examination of underwater habitats in northeastern India and Lake Tanganyika (Zambia), where zebrafish and cichlids are native. In this talk, we will describe the methods used to conduct a series of field measurements and generate a large and diverse dataset of these underwater habitats. We will present preliminary results suggesting that the demands for visually-guided navigation differ between these underwater habitats and the terrestrial habitats characteristic of other model species.
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