title: A Hardwired Circuit Supplemented with Endocannabinoids Encodes Behavioral Choice in Zebrafish.
abstract: Animals constantly make behavioral choices to facilitate moving efficiently through their environment. When faced with a threat, animals make decisions in the midst of other ongoing behaviors through a context-dependent integration of sensory stimuli. In vertebrates, the mechanisms underlying behavioral selection are poorly understood. Here, we show that ongoing swimming in zebrafish is suppressed by escape. The selection of escape over swimming is mediated by switching between two distinct motoneuron pools. A hardwired circuit mediates this switch by acting as a clutch-like mechanism to disengage the swimming motoneuron pool and engage the escape motoneuron pool. Threshold for escape initiation is lowered and swimming suppression is prolonged by endocannabinoid neuromodulation. Thus, our results reveal a novel cellular mechanism involving a hardwired circuit supplemented with endocannabinoids acting as a clutch-like mechanism to engage/disengage distinct motor pools to ensure behavioral selection and a smooth execution of motor action sequences in a vertebrate system.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institute, 171 77 Stockholm, Sweden.
authors.forename: Jianren
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Song
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institute, 171 77 Stockholm, Sweden.
authors.forename: Konstantinos
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ampatzis
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institute, 171 77 Stockholm, Sweden.
authors.forename: Jessica
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ausborn
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institute, 171 77 Stockholm, Sweden. Electronic address: abdel.elmanira@ki.se.
authors.forename: Abdeljabbar
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: El Manira
mesh_terms: D000200:Action Potentials; D000818:Animals; D002755:Choice Behavior; D063388:Endocannabinoids / Q000378:metabolism*; D004924:Escape Reaction; D009046:Motor Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D013550:Swimming; D015027:Zebrafish / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D063388:Endocannabinoids