PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Martin Haesemeyer
AU  - Drew N Robson
AU  - Jennifer M Li
AU  - Alexander F Schier
AU  - Florian Engert
TI  - A brain wide circuit model of heat evoked swimming behavior in larval zebrafish
AID  - 10.1101/190447
DP  - 2017 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 190447
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/09/18/190447.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/09/18/190447.full
AB  - Thermosensation provides crucial information but it is poorly understood how temperature representation is transformed from sensation to behavior. Here, we report a preparation that allows control of heat delivery to zebrafish larvae while monitoring motor output and imaging whole-brain calcium signals, thereby uncovering algorithmic and computational rules that couple dynamics of heat modulation, neural activity and swimming behavior. This approach identifies a critical step in the transformation of temperature representation between the sensory trigeminal ganglia and the hindbrain: A simple sustained trigeminal stimulus representation is transformed into a representation of absolute temperature as well as temperature changes in the hindbrain that explains the observed motor output. An activity constrained dynamic circuit model captures the most prominent aspects of these sensori-motor transformations and predicts both behavior and neural activity in response to novel heat stimuli. These findings provide the first algorithmic description of heat processing from sensory input to behavioral output.