Selected Grantee Publications

Collective Behavior Emerges from Genetically Controlled Simple Behavioral Motifs in Zebrafish

Harpaz et al., Science Advances. 2021.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abi7460

Harpaz et al. report that zebrafish regulate their proximity and alignment with each other at early larval stages. Two visual responses (one measuring relative visual field occupancy and one accounting for global visual motion), account for emerging group behavior. Mutations in genes known to affect social behavior in humans perturb these reflexes in individual larval zebrafish and change their emergent collective behaviors. Model simulations show that changes in these two responses in individual mutant animals predict well the distinctive collective patterns that emerge in a group. Hence, group behaviors reflect in part genetically defined primitive sensorimotor “motifs” evident in young larvae. Supported by ORIP (R43OD024879, R44OD024879) and NINDS.