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The Fetcho Lab
Neurobiology & Behavior
Life Science Bldg.
SUNY at Stony Brook
Stony Brook, NY 11794-5230
631-632-9047
FAX 631-632-6661
Site Maintained by
Melissa Bishop/DoIT
Last Modified 11/18/99 03:56:13 PM EST
Welcome to the Fetcho Lab Home Page. Our interest is in how the nervous system controls motor behavior in vertebrates. Specifically, we study swimming and escape behavior in fish. We use fish as a "model" system because its nervous system is relatively simple in organization and therefore easier to understand. Yet all vertebrates are similarly organized, so knowing how the fish moves should help us to understand more complex systems such as ourselves.
Our basic approaches to the problem are outlined as follows:
To understand how the nervous system controls behavior, we have to understand the behavior itself. We use a high-speed camera to measure escape behavior in zebrafish larvae.We also have to be able to identify the different parts of the nervous system that might be involved in the behavior of interest. We identify specific cell types in zebrafish spinal cord and hindbrain by reconstructing their 3D morphology.
To determine which of the many cell types are actually involved and how, we correlate cell activity (or physiology) with the occurrence of the behavior. We can do this either by classical electrophysiology in goldfish or optical imaging of cell activity in zebrafish.Another way to test how the nervous system actually works is by simulating cell connections and activty patterns on a computer to see if they generate the observed behavior. We have modeled the interactions between swimming and escape behavior in the goldfish nervous system.
For more information about our research, take a look at some of our past publications.
In our personal pages, the Fetcho lab members describe our research interests.
Finally, no web site is complete without a list of links.