What Can Goldfish Teach Us About The Neural Basis Of Navigation?

Host

Michael Orger, PhD, Vision to Action Lab

Venue

Seminar room

Abstract

Fish and almost all animals need to navigate to survive. To investigate the neural basis of navigation, it is critical to find where in the brain the relevant neural circuits exist, and how information about space is encoded by the activity of single neurons when the animal explores the environment. We address these issues in goldfish, a representative species of the largest vertebrate class - teleost. In the talk, I will present results from behavioral experiments, functional neuroanatomy, and electrophysiology to address the question of the neural basis of navigation in this animal. 

Bio

Ronen is a neurophysiologist and computational neuroscientist, interested in neural coding, vision and navigation, in the context of naturalistic behaviour.
He has done classic work on how visual information is coded in the spiking output of retinal ganglion cell populations, and recently he has done a lot of amazing experiments with archer fish. These little fish have extraordinary visual behaviours, shooting and catching insects out of the air, that place interesting constraints on spike coding. Many of you may also have seen the publicity around his latest work on navigation in goldfish, where, in one project, he taught goldfish to drive a car around a basketball court to get food. Using innovative paradigms like this, he is mapping out a conserved navigational system in the fish forebrain.


Register here.

About CR Colloquia Series

Champalimaud Research (CR) Colloquia Series is a seminar programme organised by the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown to promote the discussion about the most interesting and significant questions in neuroscience and physiology & cancer with appointed speakers by the CR Community.