Imaging visuomotor transformations in the brain

A zebrafish sees a dark shape overhead and, within a fraction of a second, its brain decides whether to flee or ignore it. This project aims to watch that decision happen, neuron by neuron. The problem is a fundamental gap in sensory neuroscience: we know that brains build internal models of the world, but we do not understand the precise patterns of neural activity that turn a visual signal into a specific behaviour—approach or avoid. The researchers will image every neuron in the optic tectum of larval zebrafish while simultaneously recording the animal’s eye and tail movements. This allows them to map, in real time, how the brain encodes a predator versus a prey stimulus and how that encoding drives a mutually exclusive response. This is fundamental science. It will not produce a medical treatment or a new technology tomorrow. But understanding how a vertebrate brain transforms sensory input into behavioural output is a core piece of the puzzle of how brains work. Similar fundamental work on neural circuits in simpler animals has, in the past, laid the groundwork for everything from brain-computer interfaces to treatments for movement disorders. A clearer picture of visuomotor transformation could, in the long term, inform artificial vision systems or rehabilitation strategies for people with damage to visual or motor pathways.