Neural population coding underlying visually guided behaviour of larval zebrafish.

Isaac Bianco (primary)
Neuroscience, Physiology & Pharmacology
UCL
Peter Latham (secondary)
Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit
UCL

Abstract

How do populations of neurons encode information and perform the computations that control behaviour? This project brings together experimental and theoretical approaches to address this fundamental question in systems neuroscience. Taking advantage of the tiny, transparent brain of the larval zebrafish, two-photon and light sheet imaging will be used to monitor the activity of thousands of neurons throughout the entire brain during visually guided behaviour. Analytical methods will be developed to interpret neural population dynamics and models of the circuitry underlying sensorimotor processing will be constructed. These models will in turn be experimentally tested in vivo.


References

Bianco IH and Engert F. Visuomotor transformations underlying hunting behavior in zebrafish. Current Biology (2015). 25:1-16.

Bianco IH, Kampff AR, Engert F. Prey capture behavior evoked by simple visual stimuli in larval zebrafish. Front. Syst. Neurosci. (2011). 5:101.


BBSRC Area
Animal disease, health and welfare
Area of Biology
Neurobiology
Techniques & Approaches
Image ProcessingMathematics / StatisticsMicroscopy / ElectrophysiologySimulation / Modelling