The neural basis of hunting behaviour

Host

Michael Orger, PhD, Vision to Action Lab

Venue

Seminar Room

Abstract

In my lab, we are using larval zebrafish to understand how brain-wide circuits generate innate, visually guided hunting sequences. Like many behaviours, hunting is controlled by broadly distributed neural circuits and is accomplished by generating a temporal sequence of precisely coordinated actions. I will describe our recent studies that have combined behavioural assays, whole-brain calcium imaging, optogenetics, and circuit tracing to identify neural substrates that control several hierarchical levels of hunting sequences including the overall induction and maintenance of the hunting programme as well as the control of specialised oculomotor and locomotor actions from which hunting sequences are assembled. Finally, I hope to discuss a recent project that has combined brain-wide imaging and deep learning to understand how context and recent experience shape brain-wide dynamics and contribute to behavioural variability.

Bio

Isaac Bianco studied Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge. He then joined the Wellcome 4 year PhD programme in Neuroscience at UCL, where he did his doctoral thesis with Prof Steve Wilson studying the development of left-right asymmetries in the larval zebrafish brain. He was subsequently awarded a Sir Henry Wellcome fellowship to undertake postdoc training at Harvard with Prof Florian Engert, where he studied the neural basis of visual and vestibular behaviours, again in zebrafish larvae. He was awarded a Wellcome Trust & Royal Society Sir Henry Dale fellowship in 2013 to establish a research group in the Department of Neuroscience, Physiology and Pharmacology at UCL and currently holds a Wellcome Senior Research Fellowship.

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About CR Colloquia Series

Champalimaud Research (CR) Colloquia Series is a seminar programme organised by the Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown to promote the discussion about the most interesting and significant questions in neuroscience and physiology & cancer with appointed speakers by the CR Community.