RRC ID 74222
Author Takumi Sugioka, Masashi Tanimoto, Shin-ichi Higashijima
Title Biomechanics and neural circuits for vestibular-induced fine postural control in larval zebrafish
Journal Nature Communications
Abstract Land-walking vertebrates maintain a desirable posture by finely controlling muscles. It is unclear whether fish also finely control posture in the water. Here, we showed that larval zebrafish have fine posture control. When roll-tilted, fish recovered their upright posture using a reflex behavior, which was a slight body bend near the swim bladder. The vestibular-induced body bend produces a misalignment between gravity and buoyancy, generating a moment of force that recovers the upright posture. We identified the neural circuits for the reflex, including the vestibular nucleus (tangential nucleus) through reticulospinal neurons (neurons in the nucleus of the medial longitudinal fasciculus) to the spinal cord, and finally to the posterior hypaxial muscles, a special class of muscles near the swim bladder. These results suggest that fish maintain a dorsal-up posture by frequently performing the body bend reflex and demonstrate that the reticulospinal pathway plays a critical role in fine postural control.
Volume 14
Published 2023-3-10
DOI 10.1038/s41467-023-36682-y
PMID 36898983
PMC PMC10006170
MeSH Animals Biomechanical Phenomena Larva Neurons* / physiology Postural Balance / physiology Spinal Cord / physiology Zebrafish* / physiology
IF 12.121
Resource
Zebrafish Tg(evx2-hs:GFP) Tg(evx2-hs:tdTomato-jGCaMP7b) Tg(evx2-hs:CoChR-GFP) Tg(pitx2-hs:Dendra2) Tg(smyhc2-hs:tdTomato-jGCaMP7b) Tg(smyhc2-hs:lRl-DTA)