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SearchSPECIAL REPORT »For the first time, scientists film a fish thought inaction
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This image from a video of the zebrafish larva brain shows calcium signals evoked in the right hemisphere by aswimming paramecium, off to the left. A new study in Current Biology is the first to catch a fish thought in action.
(Current Biology, Muto et al.)By Amina Khan
February 1, 2013 ,8:52 a.m.

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Have you ever looked into the glassy eyes of a pet goldfish ina bowl and wondered what’s going on in that little critter’s
noggin? Wonder no more. Scientists have for the first time
captured a fish thought in action as it sparks through thebrain, according to a new study published online Thursday inthe journal Current Biology.

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A team of Japanese scientists, using an ultra-sensitivetechnique that could become a handy tool in studies ofperception, watched a zebrafish’s brain light up as it watcheda tasty-looking paramecium swim around it.

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-fish-thought-brain-swim-zebrafish-20130131,0,5543599.story

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Scientists make first video of swimming fish thought in action - latimes.com

13/02/13 0:14

a tasty-looking paramecium swim around it.

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リニック福岡When the paramecium swam to the right, the zebrafish
brain’s left hemisphere lighted up. When it swam over to theleft, the right hemisphere lighted up. This makes sense, giventhat in vertebrate animals the brain-body connection iscrisscrossed: The right side of the body is connected to theleft side of the brain, and the left to the right.

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The researchers were able to see the brain work inremarkable detail. In one test during the study, they had thezebrafish watch a screen with a moving dot, and saw
individual neurons light up in response to particular
directions – up, down, left or right.

They also found that when a zebrafish tried to chase theparamecium down, a more frontal part of the tectum started
sparkling. That part of the tectum, the researchers surmised,must be linked to “eye convergence” – when both eyes moveinward to focus on prey – as well as approach swimming.
“Our system should enable real-time imaging of geneticallytagged neurons in the brain that may control behavior andlocomotion,” the authors write.

This method could help scientists interpret animals’
www.fukuoka.serenclinic.or.jp
behaviors, and find exactly where aspects of cognition likelearning, memory and different emotions are based in thebrain, according to the authors. And it could even help researchers quickly figure out if a drug they’retesting is effective or not.
Follow me on Twitter @aminawrite.

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To do so, the researchers honed a technique that uses
genetically modified fish whose brains fluoresce in certain
parts wherever calcium ions – which help deliver signals inthe brain – crop up. They set loose a tasty little paramecium– single-celled critters that make good baby food forzebrafish – and watched the fish's brain light up in a region
known as the optic tectum, which contains neurons linked to
the visual system.

And the researchers found that the zebrafish brain only
lighted up when the paramecium was moving; when it wasstill, the optical tectum remained dark.

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Comments

North Korea conducts
another nuclear test

Zebrafish are transparent while they’re still larvae, making
them excellent test subjects – you can see what's going on
inside their bodies, and in their brains. Still, such activity canbe challenging to track.

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