Researchers from the Centre for Developmental Neurobiology at King’s College London are using larval zebrafish to study retinal cellular and molecular building blocks that allow humans to detect oriented visual stimuli.
Called orientation selectivity, this process is reportedly vital for certain perceptual processes such as sensing whether what you're looking at is horizontal or vertical. The scientists turned to zebrafish because the larvae encompass a fully-formed visual system equivalent in overall structure and function to that of humans. During the research, the zebrafish were shown videos with shapes at different orientations and their brain activity was measured — researchers analyzed their cellular activity levels and were able to identify specific neurons in the retina and measure how they were activated by oriented stimuli.
The study was recently published in the journal Current Biology.
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Source: King’s College London