Visual receptive field properties of cells in the optic tectum of the archer fish

Ben-Tov, Mor; Kopilevich, Ivgeny; Donchin, Opher; Ben-Shahar, Ohad; Giladi, Chen; Segev, Ronen

doi:10.1152/jn.00094.2013

Cited by 21 publications

(20 citation statements)

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“…For example, since teleosts are able to perform tasks that require an isocortex for mammals such as recognition of a pop-out (Ben-Tov et al, 2013, 2015) or learn from peer’s observation (Schuster et al, 2006), we can assume that this recently evolved structure is not absolutely necessary for such complex behaviors.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Brain of the Archerfish Toxotes chatareus: A Nissl-Based Neuroanatomical Atlas and Catecholaminergic/Cholinergic Systems

2016

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Over recent years, the seven-spot archerfish (Toxotes chatareus) has emerged as a new model for studies in visual and behavioral neuroscience thanks to its unique hunting strategy. Its natural ability to spit at insects outside of water can be used in the laboratory for well controlled behavioral experiments where the fish is trained to aim at targets on a screen. The need for a documentation of the neuroanatomy of this animal became critical as more research groups use it as a model. Here we present an atlas of adult T. chatareus specimens caught in the wild in South East Asia. The atlas shows representative sections of the brain and specific structures revealed by a classic Nissl staining as well as corresponding schematic drawings. Additional immunostainings for catecholaminergic and cholinergic systems were conducted to corroborate the identification of certain nuclei and the data of a whole brain scanner is available online. We describe the general features of the archerfish brain as well as its specificities, especially for the visual system and compare the neuroanatomy of the archerfish with other teleosts. This atlas of the archerfish brain shows all levels of the neuraxis and intends to provide a solid basis for further neuroscientific research on T. chatareus, in particular electrophysiological studies.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Brain of the Archerfish Toxotes chatareus: A Nissl-Based Neuroanatomical Atlas and Catecholaminergic/Cholinergic Systems

2016

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“…Several studies have focused on the mechanisms required for spitting (Milburn and Alexander, 1976; Waxman and McCleave, 1978; Elshoud and Koomen, 1985; Timmermans, 2000; Timmermans and Vossen, 2000; Timmermans, 2001; Rossel et al, 2002; Timmermans and Souren, 2004; Schuster et al, 2006; Schlegel and Schuster, 2008; Vailati et al, 2012) as well as their visual capabilities (Braekevelt, 1985a,b; Temple et al, 2010; Ben-Simon et al, 2012b; Temple et al, 2013). Recently a number of studies have also focused on the neural mechanisms of visual discrimination (Schuster et al, 2004; Schlegel et al, 2006; Segev et al, 2007; Ben-Simon et al, 2012a; Ben-Tov et al, 2013; Gabay et al, 2013; Rischawy and Schuster, 2013). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Concept learning and the use of three common psychophysical paradigms in the archerfish (Toxotes chatareus)

Newport

Wallis

Siebeck

2014

Front. Neural Circuits

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Archerfish are well known for their specialized hunting technique of spitting water at prey located above the water line. This unique ability has made them a popular focus of study as researchers try to understand the mechanisms involved in targeting and spitting. In more recent years, archerfish have also become an increasingly popular model for studying visual discrimination and learning in general. Until now, only the alternative forced-choice (AFC) task has been used with archerfish, however, they may be capable of learning other classical discrimination tasks. As well as providing alternative, and potentially more efficient, means for testing their visual capabilities, these other tasks may also provide deeper insight into the extent to which an organism with no cortex can grasp the concepts underlying these tasks. In this paper, we consider both the matched-to-sample (MTS) and the odd-one-out (OOO) tasks as they require the subject to learn relatively sophisticated concepts rather than a straight, stimulus-reward relationship, of the kind underlying AFC tasks. A variety of line drawings displayed on a monitor were used as stimuli. We first determined if archerfish could complete the MTS and OOO test and then evaluated their ability to be retrained to new stimuli using a 4-AFC test. We found that archerfish were unable to learn the MTS and had only a limited capacity for learning the OOO task. We conclude that the MTS and OOO are impractical as paradigms for behavioral experiments with archerfish. However, the archerfish could rapidly learn to complete an AFC test and select the conditioned stimulus with a high degree of accuracy when faced with four stimuli, making this a powerful test for behavioral studies testing visual discrimination. In addition, the fish were able to learn the concept of oddity under particular training circumstances. This paper adds to the growing evidence that animals without a cortex are capable of learning some higher order concepts.

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“…Neurons in the optic tectum of the archer fish can be characterized by orientation tuning to bars moving across their receptive field 31 . Using such moving bars we first determined the preferred orientation and boundaries of the receptive field of each neuron.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The average duration of a typical recording session was B5 h, and we were able to hold single units up to 30-40 min, to obtain about seven neurons per fish. Spike sorting was done off line using custom-written Matlab routines 31 . We recorded a total of 86 neurons from 12 different archer fish in all sets of experiments.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Owing to its remarkable ability to shoot down prey found on foliage above the water level, and its ability to learn to distinguish between artificial targets presented on a computer monitor in an experimental setting 28 , the archer fish exhibits overt target selection that can be leveraged for reporting psychophysical decisions in controlled lab experiments 24,26,29,30 . At the same time, electrophysiological recordings from the central nervous system of archer fish enable the necessary exploration of neural mechanisms underlying behavioural phenomena 31 . In this work, we study pop-out in the archer fish at both of these levels.…”

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Pop-out in visual search of moving targets in the archer fish

et al. 2015

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Pop-out in visual search reflects the capacity of observers to rapidly detect visual targets independent of the number of distracting objects in the background. Although it may be beneficial to most animals, pop-out behaviour has been observed only in mammals, where neural correlates are found in primary visual cortex as contextually modulated neurons that encode aspects of saliency. Here we show that archer fish can also utilize this important search mechanism by exhibiting pop-out of moving targets. We explore neural correlates of this behaviour and report the presence of contextually modulated neurons in the optic tectum that may constitute the neural substrate for a saliency map. Furthermore, we find that both behaving fish and neural responses exhibit additive responses to multiple visual features. These findings suggest that similar neural computations underlie pop-out behaviour in mammals and fish, and that pop-out may be a universal search mechanism across all vertebrates.

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Visual receptive field properties of cells in the optic tectum of the archer fish

Abstract: Ben-Tov M, Kopilevich I, Donchin O, Ben-Shahar O, Giladi C, Segev R. Visual receptive field properties of cells in the optic tectum of the archer fish.

Cited by 21 publications

References 50 publications

The Brain of the Archerfish Toxotes chatareus: A Nissl-Based Neuroanatomical Atlas and Catecholaminergic/Cholinergic Systems

The Brain of the Archerfish Toxotes chatareus: A Nissl-Based Neuroanatomical Atlas and Catecholaminergic/Cholinergic Systems

Concept learning and the use of three common psychophysical paradigms in the archerfish (Toxotes chatareus)

Pop-out in visual search of moving targets in the archer fish

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