Research Projects

Apr, 2018 - Mar, 2020

Elucidation of representation of telencephalic neural ensemble during decision making in adult zebrafish

Japan Society for the Promotion of Science  Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists  Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists

Grant number
18K14858
Japan Grant Number (JGN)
JP18K14858
Grant amount
(Total)
2,990,000 Japanese Yen
(Direct funding)
2,300,000 Japanese Yen
(Indirect funding)
690,000 Japanese Yen

The purpose of this study was the elucidation of the neural mechanisms of decision making using adult zebrafish. For this, we established the closed-loop virtual reality system to observe the neural activity of the broad area of the dorsal pallium in adult zebrafish during training for active and passive avoidance. Observation of neural activity revealed that training generates multiple neural ensembles that attach rules/values (safe or danger) to what fish see, i.e. the colors of the surrounding walls (blue, red, etc.), or to the states of what they see, i.e. whether the scenery is moving or stationary. Variation in the combination of these ensembles generated in each fish during trials highly correlated with the diverse approaches the fish took to achieve the same goal (i.e. escaping to the safe area), indicating that individual difference in the behavioral strategies was caused by diversity in the methods of cognitive value assignments that each fish acquired during training.

Link information
KAKEN
https://kaken.nii.ac.jp/grant/KAKENHI-PROJECT-18K14858
ID information
  • Grant number : 18K14858
  • Japan Grant Number (JGN) : JP18K14858