Dissecting the structure and function of vertebrate sensorimotor neural circuits using larval zebrafish

我们日常生活中必不可少的是使用感官信息来计划和产生目标导向运动的能力。这些行为包括一些基本的任务，比如伸手去拿一个物体或走上一段楼梯。尽管这些行为相对简单，但在控制它们的所谓“感觉运动神经回路”中有着惊人的复杂性。确定这些感觉和运动回路的结构和功能对于理解大脑如何产生行为至关重要。神经科学家在解开电路功能时面临的一些挑战是哺乳动物大脑中神经元的数量及其令人难以置信的多样性。此外，大脑的规模和不透明性阻碍了我们在行为过程中彻底记录神经元活动的能力。最近在分子生物学、显微镜和计算机方面的技术进步使我们有可能开始克服其中一些实验障碍。这些进展为研究人员提供了一个前所未有的机会，可以对神经回路的运作方式进行根本性的发现。

Essential to our daily lives is the ability to use sensory information to plan and produce goal-directed movements. Such behaviours include basic tasks like reaching for an object or walking up a flight of stairs. Despite the relative simplicity of these behaviours, there is an astounding amount of complexity in the so-called “sensorimotor neural circuits” that control them. Determining the structure and function of these circuits that underlie sensation and movement is essential to understanding how the brain produces behaviour. Some of the challenges faced by neuroscientists in unraveling circuit function are the sheer number of neurons in the mammalian brain and their incredible diversity. Additionally, the scale and opacity of the brain hinders our ability to thoroughly record neuronal activity during behaviour. Recent technological advances in molecular biology, microscopy and computing have made it possible to begin to overcome some of these experimental hurdles. These advances present researchers with an unprecedented opportunity to make fundamental discoveries about how neural circuits operate.