Larval zebrafish

Animals are dynamical systems possessing a wide range of capabilities mediated by interactions between their constitutive cells. The brain, central integrator and coordinator of bodily output, solves problems in the context of bodily needs, driven by external environmental signals and internal bodily signals. While neuroscience has progressed in the ability to measure neurons and environment at ever great scale and resolution, our ability to measure activity within the rest of the body and relate these to neuronal computation remains limited. Here, we extend the principles and tools of neurosc

…The translucent larval zebrafish offers unique opportunities to study brain-wide cellular-level neural computations during visuomotor transformations. One such transformation is the optomotor response (OMR), where fish execute discrete locomotion bouts to stabilize their body position i

…interaction assay showed that larval zebrafish just a week of age learn to identify and avoid a robot following brief minutes-long periods of chase. Whole-brain calcium imaging identified noradrenergic signaling, consistent with a reinforcement signal, that was coupled to activity in populations spread across the larval pallium, subpallium, and habenula. Finally, targeted ne

…We used larval zebrafish to investigate auditory habituation in four genetic models of autism: fmr1, mecp2, scn1lab and cntnap2. Larval zebrafish are optically transparent, enabling whole-brain imaging of neural activity at single-cell resolution using genetically encoded calcium indicator GCaMP6s. In free-swimming

…we investigate whether CSF-cNs in larval zebrafish can detect and respond to pathological CSF changes induced by a ventricular injection of Streptococcus pneumoniae (S. pneumoniae), the major pathogen

…a visual motion accumulation task in larval zebrafish. Using conne

When larval zebrafish experience whole-field visual motion, as in the random-dot task, they swim in the direction of motion - an innate behavior enabling animals to maintain position in moving water. This behavior is well-explained by the same drift-diffusion algorithm that captures human and primate behavior in analogous random-dot paradigms. We previously proposed a hypothetical circuit model that implements this algorithm via a recurrent integrator circuit in the zebrafish hindbrain that accumulates noisy visual evidence and excites downstream motor circuits after overcoming competitive inh

…We address this question using larval zebrafish and focus on the central excitatory strip in the hindbrain labelled by transcription factor vsx2+ (V2a). Us

…we focus on the olfactory bulb (OB) of larval zebrafish. The OB is optically accessible and sufficiently small to enable dense ultrastructural reconstructions of neuronal cir

Sleep’s ubiquitous presence across the animal kingdom underscores its crucial role in an organism’s cognitive, emotional, and physiological function. In mammals, sleep is subdivided into two distinct substates: Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep and Non-rapid Eye Movement (NREM) sleep. NREM sleep is marked by synchronized brain activity and muscle tone loss, while REM sleep is characterized by desynchronized brain activity, muscle atonia, and bursts of eye movements. Nevertheless, the definition of sleep varies across species making the evolutionary origin of distinct sleep states unclear. In orga

…in precocial animals such as larval zebrafish, evolutionarily embedded innate neural programs are able to overcome this challenge with no parental guidance and limited learning ability. Previous studies have highlighted the internally driven spontaneous alternation between long-lasting exploration or exploitation states (Flavell et al., 2013; Martin, Ernst, & Heisenberg, 1999, Marques et al., 2020). We aim to understand how these i

…Larval zebrafish react to such signals with behaviors ranging from active light seeking and shadow avoidance to optomotor swimming or hunting that are expressed in kinematically distinct movements. We asked how are the brain-wide networks of neurons organized that process such signals and how do they integra

…A recent study in zebrafish showed that upon sensory-motor mismatch, passivity involves noradrenergic signaling eliciting a brain-wide glial calcium wave. However, it remains unknown how noradrenergic activation translates into subsequent glial calcium waves and provokes motor arrest. Our working hypothesis is that noradrenergic neurons integrate intensive s

…advent of tracking microscopy, the larval zebrafish is an ideal vertebrate model for recording brain-wide cellular-resolution neural activity in freely behaving animals during natural behavior. However, current imaging methods such as structured illumination or light field microscopy, compatible with tracking microscopy, rely on high

…The larval zebrafish telencephalon is a compact circuit of only ~10,000 neurons that contains potentially homologous structures to the mammalian basal ganglia and limbic system (e.g., the hippocampus). However, despite long-standing evidence that spatial navigation and learning in zebrafish requires an intact telencephalon, cells believed to underlie spatial cognition in the mammalian hippocampus (e.g., place cells) have yet to be established in any fish species. Using a tracking microscope to i

…Here, we use larval zebrafish as our model organisms due to their regenerative capability, optical trans

…We exposed larval zebrafish to the CUS, subsequently ablated DRN 5-HT neurons using chemogenetics and assessed different types of anxiety-lik

…response (OMR) behavior in the larval zebrafish to study how these animals respond to whole-field motio

…lateral line (LL) system of larval zebrafish (Danio rerio) mediates navigation by detecting flow relative to the body. The LL is innervated by peripheral afferent neurons that project to medial octavolateralis nuclei (MON) in the brainstem. Current m

…size and conserved brain structure of larval zebrafish to investigate the consequences of sleep deprivation in the context of two well-described behaviors, a visual and an olfactory-based decision-making task. We find that in both paradigms, sleep deprivation leads to an improvement in performance. Specifically, we show that sleep deprivation increases reaction time and improves performance in a visual motion discrimina

…information, we chose to study the larval zebrafish because of its well-defined behavioral repertoire and its optical accessibility for brain imaging. We recorded whole-brain activity at single cell resolution in freely moving fish while simultaneously presenting whole-field, dark-flash visual stimuli. Behaviorally, dark flashes reliably elicited high amplitude turn responses in awake and alert fish. Neurally, they

…these interactions, we utilize the larval zebrafish by taking advantage of its optical transparency and small size to combine brain-wide imaging

…the C-startle escape response in larval zebrafish. However, the behavioral space of the response to the visual looms may also involve freezing and other types of swim bouts. In this work, we carried out free swimming behavioral experiments and immunofluorescence imaging protocols to explore the differences between types of visual looms and how they affect behavioral output through habituation and cha

…We study this paradigm in larval zebrafish using a virtual reality setup. We first “train” the fish such that they