Lateralized Feeding Behavior is Associated with Asymmetrical Neuroanatomy and Lateralized Gene Expressions in the Brain in Scale-Eating Cichlid Fish.

ABSTRACT: Lateralized behavior ("handedness") is unusual, but consistently found across diverse animal lineages, including humans. It is thought to reflect brain anatomical and/or functional asymmetries, but its neuro-molecular mechanisms remain largely unknown. Lake Tanganyika scale-eating cichlid fish, Perissodus microlepis show pronounced asymmetry in their jaw morphology as well as handedness in feeding behavior-biting scales preferentially only from one or the other side of their victims. This makes them an ideal model in which to investigate potential laterality in neuroanatomy and transcription in the brain in relation to behavioral handedness. After determining behavioral handedness in P. microlepis (preferred attack side), we estimated the volume of the hemispheres of brain regions and capt

SUBMITTER: Lee HJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5737854 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature