ELSC Seminar Series

Fish and almost all animals need to navigate to find food, and escape from predators. 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 fish. We used wireless electrophysiology in freely swimming goldfish to show the exitance of several cell types representing aspects of space and kinematics. This includes boundary vector cells, head direction cells, edge cells and velocity cells. Overall, these findings provide insights into spatial cognition in teleost fish and give critical comparative information about the neurobiology basis of navigation in this important family of animals.