Scientists make fish thoughts glow

For the first time in history biologists have made a real time observation of how fish’s brain operates during hunting. The experiment was made possible thanks to the jellyfish genes that produce fluorescent proteins.

Biologists from the National Institute of Genetics, Japan, contrived to record in real time the way nerve impulses are transmitted in the subcortical centres of fish’s brain responsible for analyzing visual signals during hunting. The new technology that allows visualizing signal interaction of neurons at the cellular level is likely to be employed as an effective way of studying core brain processes, on which perception, memory, analysis and decision-making are based.

The article featuring the description of the technology and experiments which helped the biologists to understand how a fish thinks was published on Thursday night in the Current Biology journal.

The problem of how exactly the brain perceives and processes information and forms motor commands while the operation surroundings around it are constantly changing, remains one of the fundamental questions of neuroscience. The opportunity to see how nerve impulses circulate in the brain of a living creature in real time without using crude invasive methods, such as measuring the electrical activity in nerve cells with the help of microelectrodes inserted into the brain tissue, appeared only after the method of fluorescentanalysis has been invented, in which fluorescent proteins, which are implanted into the body of an animal as a marker of cellular activity.

The experiment allowed the scientists to see for the first time how a fish thinks when it feels there is something tasty within its reach.

For sure, 'thinking' in this case means a chain of signals appearing in the section of fish’s brain responsible for analysing visual information. However, the authors of the study claim that the technology may be used in order to create a more complex picture of the operation of the vertebrates’ spinal cord, which eventually will help to understand the neuron operation principles on which more complex processes are based, such as memorizing, learning, decision-making, emotions and motorcommands.