Optomotor response

…One such transformation is the optomotor response (OMR), where fish execute discrete locomotion bouts to stabilize their body position i

…that map onto reproducible behavioural responses. However, the many features of a complex natural environment would inevitably drive multiple dedicated circuits, eliciting a combination of competing motor commands. To cope, sensorimotor transformations should be selectively modulated depending on the animal's goals and internal state. Here, we have developed a novel behavioural paradigm to study how the fruit fly processes competing visual stimuli to generate coherent behaviour. We exploit the fruit fly's optomotor res

Clinical studies continuously unveil the increase risk of neurodevelopmental disorders in association with specific genetic variants. The impact of these mutations on the signal cascades leading to alterations of the brain functions, is frequently unclear. This is the case for the cdkl5 gene, encoding the Cyclin-Dependent-Kinase-Like-5 enzyme, whose mutations are linked to CDKL deficiency disorder (CDD). This is neurodevelopmental disease characterized by impairment of cognitive and motor skills. Here, we aim to elucidate the pathophysiological mechanisms associated with the lack of Cdkl5, emp

Repressor Element 1-Silencing Transcription Factor (REST) regulates the expression of a wide array of neuronal genes implicated in differentiation, development and plasticity. We demonstrate the effect of REST inhibition on primary visual cortex (V1) plasticity in the adult mouse. Employing the monocular deprivation paradigm and experimentally-induced amblyopia in a RESTGTi conditional knockout (cKO) model, we studied the effects of stereotaxically delivering Cre recombinase into V1 via adeno-associated virus vectors (AAVs) on visual cortex plasticity in vivo. To this end, we recorded visual

…Here we take advantage of the optomotor response (OMR) behavior in the larval zebrafish to study how these animals respond to whole-field motio

During development, the complex neuronal circuitry of the brain arises from limited information contained in the genome. After the genetic code instructs the birth of neurons, the emergence of brain regions, and the formation of axon tracts, it is believed that neuronal activity plays a critical role in shaping circuits for behavior. Current AI technologies are modeled after the same principle: connections in an initial weight matrix are pruned and strengthened by activity-dependent signals until the network can sufficiently generalize a set of inputs into outputs. Here, we challenge these lea

…relationships to influence future responses to stimuli at the perceptual and behavioral levels. Fish were first made to adapt to changing locomotor efficacy, the difficulty of translating oneself through space. Fish inc

…are connected and influence neural response dynamics that underlie behavior. Recent studies into the visually guided optomotor response (OMR) in larval zebrafish have attempted to bridge this gap by proposing circuit models that predict connectivity among functionally identified response classes of motion-processing neurons driving the OMR [1,2]. However, these models only consider responses o

Animal sensory systems are optimally adapted to those features typically encountered in natural surrounds, thus allowing neurons that have a limited bandwidth to encode almost impossibly large input ranges. Importantly, natural scenes are not random, and peripheral visual systems have therefore evolved to reduce the predictable redundancy. The vertebrate visual cortex is also optimally tuned to the spatial statistics of natural scenes, but much less is known about how the insect brain responds to these. We are redressing this deficiency using several techniques. Olga Dyakova uses exquisite im

…like the optokinetic (OKR) or optomotor response (OMR) in order to maintain their eye and body position relative to the moving surround. But how does the animal manage to perform appropriate behavioral response and how are processing tasks divided between the various non-cortical visual brain areas? Experiments have shown that the zebrafish pretectum, which is homologous to the mammalian accessory optic system, is involved in the OK