This is what a fish thought looks like

13/02/13 0:05

Public release date: 31-Jan-2013[ Print | E-mail |Share ] [ Close Window ]Contact: Mary Beth O'Learymoleary@cell.com
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Cell Press

This is what a fish thought looks like
For the first time, researchers have been able to see athought "swim" through the brain of a living fish. The newtechnology is a useful tool for studies of perception. It mighteven find use in psychiatric drug discovery, according toauthors of the study, appearing online on January 31 in
Current Biology, a Cell Press publication.
"Our work is the first to show brain activities in real time in
an intact animal during that animal's natural behavior," said
Koichi Kawakami of Japan's National Institute of Genetics.
"We can make the invisible visible; that's what is mostimportant."

VIDEO: Calcium signals are
evoked by a swimming paramecium.

VIDEO: For the first time,
researchers have been able to see athought "swim " through the brain ofa living fish. The new technology is a
useful tool for studies of...

The technicalbreakthrough included
the development of avery sensitive
Click here for more information.
fluorescent probe todetect neuronal activity.
Kawakami, along with Junichi Nakai of Saitama University
and their colleagues, also devised a genetic method for
inserting that probe right into the neurons of interest. The
two-part approach allowed the researchers to detect
neuronal activity at single-cell resolution in the zebrafish
brain.

Click here for more information.

Akira Muto, the study's lead author from the Kawakami lab,used the new tool to map what happens when a zebrafish
sees something good to eat, in this case a swimming paramecium. The researchers were alsoable to correlate brain activity with that prey's capture.
The new tool now makes it possible to ask which brain circuits are involved in complex behaviors,from perception to movement to decision making, the researchers say, noting that the basic
design and function of a zebrafish brain is very much like our own.
"In the future, we can interpret an animal's behavior,including learning and memory, fear, joy, or anger, based on

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ページ 1/2This is what a fish thought looks like

13/02/13 0:05

including learning and memory, fear, joy, or anger, based on
the activity of particular combinations of neurons," Kawakami
said.
By monitoring neuronal activity in the zebrafish brain,
Kawakami thinks that researchers may also be able toscreen chemicals that affect neuronal activity in the brain.
"This has the potential to shorten the long processes for thedevelopment of new psychiatric medications," he said.
###Current Biology, Muto et al.: "Real-time visualization ofneuronal activity during perception."

IMAGE: For the first time,
researchers have been able to see athought "swim " through the brain ofa living fish. The new technology is a
useful tool for studies of...
Click here for more information.

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