PUBLICATION
Retinotectal circuitry of larval zebrafish is adapted to detection and pursuit of prey
- Authors
- Förster, D., Helmbrecht, T.O., Mearns, D.S., Jordan, L., Mokayes, N., Baier, H.
- ID
- ZDB-PUB-201015-6
- Date
- 2020
- Source
- eLIFE 9: (Journal)
- Registered Authors
- Baier, Herwig, Helmbrecht, Thomas, Mearns, Duncan, Mokayes, Nouwar
- Keywords
- ethology, neuroscience, retinal ganglion cell, retinotectal map, tectum, visual system, zebrafish
- MeSH Terms
-
- Animals
- Predatory Behavior/physiology*
- Superior Colliculi/physiology*
- Visual Perception*
- Zebrafish/physiology*
- PubMed
- 33044168 Full text @ Elife
Citation
Förster, D., Helmbrecht, T.O., Mearns, D.S., Jordan, L., Mokayes, N., Baier, H. (2020) Retinotectal circuitry of larval zebrafish is adapted to detection and pursuit of prey. eLIFE. 9:.
Abstract
Retinal axon projections form a map of the visual environment in the tectum. A zebrafish larva typically detects a prey object in its peripheral visual field. As it turns and swims towards the prey, the stimulus enters the central, binocular area, and seemingly expands in size. By volumetric calcium imaging, we show that posterior tectal neurons, which serve to detect prey at a distance, tend to respond to small objects and intrinsically compute their direction of movement. Neurons in anterior tectum, where the prey image is represented shortly before the capture strike, are tuned to larger object sizes and are frequently not direction-selective, indicating that mainly interocular comparisons serve to compute an object's movement at close range. The tectal feature map originates from a linear combination of diverse, functionally specialized, lamina-specific, and topographically ordered retinal ganglion cell synaptic inputs. We conclude that local cell-type composition and connectivity across the tectum are adapted to the processing of location-dependent, behaviorally relevant object features.
Genes / Markers
Expression
Phenotype
Mutations / Transgenics
Human Disease / Model
Sequence Targeting Reagents
Fish
Orthology
Engineered Foreign Genes
Mapping