Dynamics of Zebrafish Behavioral Responses to Visual Stimuli

Zebrafish is playing an increasingly important role in the study of retinal development and drug screening because of the similarities in functional retinal morphologies with that of humans. Through profiling visual-motor response (VMR) of different genotypes, how certain factors affect behavioral responses can be investigated. However, variance in visual system development can be high, particularly in mutants, so novel methods shall be developed for the investigation of influence from different factors, such as diseases and drugs.This project aims to utilize advanced mathematical modeling and data mining techniques to accurately classify different types of zebrafish based on their behavioral data only. The major objective is to develop nonlinear dynamic models describing behavioral responses for zebrafish of different strains or genotypes to visual stimuli with different stimulation durations and light intensities. In the meantime, outliers in behavior within each type of zebrafish would be identified. Further biological studies on these outliers may reveal the possible underlying or unknown factors that influence the retinal development and individual responses to drugs.