Understanding sensorimotor circuits implementing zebrafish behavior
Behavior emerges from vast neuronal networks that span the entire brain, and finding order in this immense complexity is a central aim of neuroscience. Here I will describe my ongoing work to unravel the brain-wide circuitry implementing motion-guided behavior in larval zebrafish. I will present a combination of theoretical and experimental results that illustrate information processing principles in several brain regions involved in the optomotor response. First, I will discuss how optimal estimation theory and natural sensory statistics predict visual motion processing by the retina. I will then present a theory for how the interplay of sensory drive, behavioral demands, and neurobiological constraints shapes neuronal responses in a retinorecipient area called the pretectum. This theory suggests that premotor coding of stimuli driving behavior strongly affects pretectal representation, an observation that may apply to other sensory areas in the central brain.
Date: 5 December 2018, 13:30 (Wednesday, 9th week, Michaelmas 2018)
Venue: Le Gros Clark Building, off South Parks Road OX1 3QX
Venue Details: Lecture Theatre
Speaker: Dr James Fitzgerald (HHMI Janelia Research Campus)
Organisers: Dr Andrew Saxe (Harvard), Dr Friedemann Zenke (University of Oxford)
Organiser contact email address: friedemann.zenke@cncb.ox.ac.uk
Host: Dr Andrew Saxe (Harvard)
Part of: Oxford Neurotheory Forum
Booking required?: Not required
Audience: Members of the University only
Editor: Friedemann Zenke