| Budget Amount *help |
¥4,420,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,400,000、Indirect Cost: ¥1,020,000)
Fiscal Year 2015: ¥1,430,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,100,000、Indirect Cost: ¥330,000)
Fiscal Year 2014: ¥1,430,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,100,000、Indirect Cost: ¥330,000)
Fiscal Year 2013: ¥1,560,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,200,000、Indirect Cost: ¥360,000)
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| Outline of Final Research Achievements |
An animal moving through the environment maintains or changes its direction of progression based on internal and/or external sensory information. To understand neural mechanisms underlying directional control of locomotion, we studied the tactile-mediated escape response in zebrafish larvae as a model, in which the direction of escape changes depending upon the position of the tactile stimulus on the body surface. By using two-poton calcium imaging, we monitored the neural activity evoked by the tactile stimulus in the hindbrain mafb-positive area. From this assay, we identified a group of neurons that showed different neural activities depending upon the position of tactile stimulus, which were designated as MDL cells. Furthermore, MDL cells turned out to possess the axons extending toward the spinal cord. The spatial response property and the axonal projection toward the spinal cord raise a possibility that ML cells regulate the escape direction according to the touch position.
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