Generation of new transgenic zebrafish lines for studying neuronal circuits underlying behavior in zebrafish

• Autor(a) principal: Velez, Mariana Ramos
• Data de Publicação: 2018
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10362/58095
• topic: zebrafish; LSSmOrange; mScarlet; genetically encoded calcium ion indicators; neuronal circuits; neurobiology; Domínio/Área Científica::Engenharia e Tecnologia::Outras Engenharias e Tecnologias

A central goal of Neuroscience is to understand how the brain processes sensory stimuli and generates behavioral responses. To achieve this goal, it is crucial to monitor and manipulate the neuronal activity of single cells in real time, as well as to study the neuronal circuits and their connections throughout the whole-brain in a behaving animal. Thus, it is important to use a genetically tractable model organism with a relatively simple nervous system but with robust behavior. Zebrafish has become a promising model organism in the study of nervous system. The accessibility and optical transparency of embryos and larvae make possible the expression and visualization of genetically encoded fluorescent reporters, through transgenic techniques. In this work, recent genetically encoded fluorescent reporters (LSSmOrange, mScarlet and GCaMP6fEF05) were used for establishing new transgenic zebrafish lines, through the Tol2 transposon system. These lines will be used to study the communication between different populations of neurons and to record neural activity during behavioral responses. The generation of new genetic tools allied to the development of sophisticated imaging techniques has opened up the possibility of whole-brain imaging with single-cell resolution and high temporal precision. In the coming years, the challenge will be to combine the approaches developed and currently used in zebrafish to understand how behaviors are generated in higher vertebrates.