See the idea of ​​zebra fish

(This is the first time researchers can see a "swimming" idea inside a brain of a living fish.

This new technology is a useful tool for cognitive research. Even this technology can be used in psychiatric addictive findings, according to the study's author. The study was published online January 31 in Current Biology.

"Our study is the first study to show brain activity in real time in an intact animal in the natural behavior of animals," said Koichi Kawakami of Japan's National Genetics Institute. to speak. "We can make something invisible become the most important thing."

The technical breakthrough includes the development of a highly sensitive fluorescence probe to detect neural activity. Kawakami, along with Junichi Nakai of Saitama University and their colleagues, also devised a genetic method to insert the probe into the nerve cells they were interested in studying. The two-part approach allows researchers to detect neuronal activity at single-cell resolution in zebrafish brains.

Akira Muto, the study's lead author from the Kawakami lab, used newly created tools to map what would happen when a zebrafish saw an attractive food, in case This is a swimming primitive animal. Researchers can also establish a correlation between fish brain activity and prey capture.

New tools help clarify which brain circuits are involved in complex behaviors, from cognition to movement and decision making, the researchers said, noting that basic designs and functions The zebrafish's brain is very similar to that of humans.

"In the future, we can explain the behavior of animals, including learning and memory, fear, joy or anger, based on the activity of special combinations among nerve cells , " Kawakami said.

By tracking neuronal activity in the zebrafish brain, Kawakami thinks that researchers can also block chemicals that affect neuronal activity in the brain."This has the potential to shorten capital-intensive processes to develop new psychiatric drugs ," he said.