Uncovering multiscale structure in the variability of larval zebrafish navigation.

ABSTRACT: Animals chain movements into long-lived motor strategies, exhibiting variability across scales that reflects the interplay between internal states and environmental cues. To reveal structure in such variability, we build Markov models of movement sequences that bridge across timescales and enable a quantitative comparison of behavioral phenotypes among individuals. Applied to larval zebrafish responding to diverse sensory cues, we uncover a hierarchy of long-lived motor strategies, dominated by changes in orientation distinguishing cruising versus wandering strategies. Environmental cues induce preferences along these modes at the population level: while fish cruise in the light, they wander in response to aversive stimuli, or in search for appetitive prey. As our method encodes the behavi

SUBMITTER: Sridhar G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11588111 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature