Application of zebrafish oculomotor behavior to model human disorders
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Colette M. Maurer
Abstract
To ensure high acuity vision, eye movements have to be controlled with astonishing precision by the oculomotor system. Many human diseases can lead to abnormal eye movements, typically of the involuntary oscillatory eye movements type called nystagmus. Such nystagmus can be congenital (infantile) or acquired later in life. Although the resulting eye movements are well characterized, there is only little information about the underlying etiology. This is in part owing to the lack of appropriate animal models. In this review article, we describe how the zebrafish with its quick maturing visual system can be used to model oculomotor pathologies. We compare the characteristics and assessment of human and zebrafish eye movements. We describe the oculomotor properties of the zebrafish mutant belladonna, which has non-crossing optical fibers, and is a particularly informative model for human oculomotor deficits. This mutant displays a reverse optokinetic response, spontaneous oscillations that closely mimic human congenital nystagmus and abnormal motor behavior linked to circular vection.
©2011 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin New York
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- Publisher's Note
- A new start for Reviews in the Neurosciences
- Guest Editorial
- A small fish with a big future: zebrafish in behavioral neuroscience
- Application of zebrafish oculomotor behavior to model human disorders
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- Sleep and its regulation in zebrafish
- Zebrafish behavioural assays of translational relevance for the study of psychiatric disease
- Stressing zebrafish for behavioral genetics
- Imaging escape and avoidance behavior in zebrafish larvae
- Zebrafish assessment of cognitive improvement and anxiolysis: filling the gap between in vitro and rodent models for drug development
- Alcohol-induced behavior change in zebrafish models
- Zebrafish models to study drug abuse-related phenotypes
- The role of dopaminergic signalling during larval zebrafish brain development: a tool for investigating the developmental basis of neuropsychiatric disorders
- Let there be light: zebrafish neurobiology and the optogenetic revolution
Articles in the same Issue
- Publisher's Note
- A new start for Reviews in the Neurosciences
- Guest Editorial
- A small fish with a big future: zebrafish in behavioral neuroscience
- Application of zebrafish oculomotor behavior to model human disorders
- Shoaling in zebrafish: what we don’t know
- Sleep and its regulation in zebrafish
- Zebrafish behavioural assays of translational relevance for the study of psychiatric disease
- Stressing zebrafish for behavioral genetics
- Imaging escape and avoidance behavior in zebrafish larvae
- Zebrafish assessment of cognitive improvement and anxiolysis: filling the gap between in vitro and rodent models for drug development
- Alcohol-induced behavior change in zebrafish models
- Zebrafish models to study drug abuse-related phenotypes
- The role of dopaminergic signalling during larval zebrafish brain development: a tool for investigating the developmental basis of neuropsychiatric disorders
- Let there be light: zebrafish neurobiology and the optogenetic revolution
