PUBLICATION
Evidence for a widespread brain stem escape network in larval zebrafish
- Authors
- Gahtan, E., Sankrithi, N., Campos, J.B., and O'Malley, D.M.
- ID
- ZDB-PUB-020115-4
- Date
- 2002
- Source
- Journal of neurophysiology 87(1): 608-614 (Journal)
- Registered Authors
- Gahtan, Ethan, O'Malley, Donald, Sankrithi, Nagarajan
- Keywords
- none
- MeSH Terms
-
- Action Potentials/physiology
- Animals
- Brain Stem/cytology
- Brain Stem/physiology*
- Calcium/metabolism
- Escape Reaction/physiology*
- Larva
- Microscopy, Confocal
- Nerve Net/cytology
- Nerve Net/physiology*
- Neurons/cytology
- Neurons/metabolism
- Physical Stimulation
- Spinal Cord/physiology
- Zebrafish/physiology*
- PubMed
- 11784774 Full text @ J. Neurophysiol.
Citation
Gahtan, E., Sankrithi, N., Campos, J.B., and O'Malley, D.M. (2002) Evidence for a widespread brain stem escape network in larval zebrafish. Journal of neurophysiology. 87(1):608-614.
Abstract
Zebrafish escape behaviors, which typically consist of a C bend, a counter-turn, and a bout of rapid swimming, are initiated by firing of the Mauthner cell and two segmental homologs. However, after laser-ablation of the Mauthner cell and its homologs, escape-like behaviors still occur, albeit at a much longer latency. This might suggest that additional neurons contribute to this behavior. We therefore recorded the activity of other descending neurons in the brain stem using confocal imaging of cells retrogradely labeled with fluorescent calcium indicators. A large majority of identified descending neurons present in the larval zebrafish, including both ipsilaterally and contralaterally projecting reticulospinal neurons, as well as neurons from the nucleus of the medial longitudinal fasciculus, showed short-latency calcium responses after gentle taps to the head of the larva-a stimulus that reliably evokes an escape behavior. Previous studies had associated suc! h in vivo calcium responses with the firing of action potentials, and because all responding cells have axons projecting into to spinal cord, this suggests that these cells are relaying escape-related information to spinal cord. Other identified neurons failed to show consistent calcium responses to escape-eliciting stimuli. In conjunction with previous lesion studies, these results indicate that the neural control systems for turning and swimming behaviors are widely distributed in the larval zebrafish brain stem. The degree of robustness or redundancy of this system has implications for the descending control of vertebrate locomotion.
Genes / Markers
Expression
Phenotype
Mutations / Transgenics
Human Disease / Model
Sequence Targeting Reagents
Fish
Orthology
Engineered Foreign Genes
Mapping