QBI Neuroscience Seminar: 'The development of neural coding in zebrafish, and a new method for analysing calcium imaging data'

Event Details

Date:

Wednesday, 07 August 2019 - Wednesday, 07 August 2019

Time:

11:00 am - 12:00 pm

Room:

QBI Level 7 Auditorium

UQ Location:

Queensland Brain Institute (St Lucia)

URL:

http://www.qbi.uq.edu.au/neuroscience-seminars

Event category(s):

Full Description:: Professor Geoff Goodhill
Queensland Brain Institute
University of Queensland

Title: 'The development of neural coding in zebrafish, and a new method for analysing calcium imaging data'

Abstract: I will first describe our recent work using high-speed imaging of behaviour and 2-photon imaging of brain activity to investigate how neural coding develops in the larval zebrafish. We show that hunting performance improves over development, the neural code refines non-uniformly over the optic tectum, and evoked and spontaneous activity diverge over development. I will then present a new statistical model of calcium imaging data that reveals the extent to which neurons are driven by visual stimuli, latent sources of spontaneous activity, and their interaction. This broadly applicable model brings new insight into population-level neural activity in single trials without averaging away potentially important information encoded in spontaneous activity (https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/691261v1).