Researchers believe zebrafish may provide clues to understanding how the human nervous system develops since this fish experiences new movements similarly to how babies do after birth. To understand how our nervous system enables us to move and learn new movements such as walking or swimming as we grow, researchers looked closely at the nervous system of zebrafish and built models of developing zebrafish spinal circuits to test and further understand the operation of spinal circuits for moving.

To understand how our nervous system enables us to move and learn new movements such as walking or swimming as we grow, researchers looked closely at the nervous system of zebrafish and built models of developing zebrafish spinal circuits to test and further understand the operation of spinal circuits for moving. Their computational study, «Modelling spinal locomotor circuits for movements in developing zebrafish,» was recently published in the journal eLife.

To learn more, we talked to senior author Tuan Bui, Associate Professor in the Department of Biology, head of the Neural Motor Circuits Lab and member of the uOttawa Brain and Mind Research Institute.

Please tell us more about this research.

«Understanding how the spinal cord controls our body is essential for improving treatments for movement disorders due to injury or disease to the nervous system. We examined the function of the spinal cord in zebrafish since zebrafish and mammals have many spinal neurons in common. These freshwater fish are a widely used model organism in biomedical research.

«Recent studies have described the swimming maneuvers of growing zebrafish and the spinal neurons present at these developmental stages. These studies motivated us to ask what changes in the spinal cord help young zebrafish acquire new swimming movements as they mature.»

«The spinal cord is a long, thin, tubular structure extending from the brainstem to the lower part of the vertebral column. It contains several populations of nerve cells (neurons) that help control and coordinate all the body muscles and aid in making movements. We do not yet fully understand the role of each spinal neuron and how they communicate with other neurons and muscles to facilitate movement in animals.

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