Stimulus Contrast Information Modulates Sensorimotor Decision Making in Goldfish

OTERO CORONEL, SANTIAGO; MARTORELL, NICOLÁS; BERON DE ASTRADA, MARTÍN; MEDAN, VIOLETA

Frontiers in Neural Circuits

Frontiers Media S.A.

Año: 2020 vol. 14

Animal survival relays on environmental information gathered by their sensory systems. We found that information of the contrast of a looming stimulus biases the type of defensive behavior the animals perform. Very low contrast looms only evoke subtle alarm reactions whose probability is independent of contrast. As looming contrast is enhanced the probability of eliciting a fast escape maneuver, the C-start response, increases dramatically. Contrast information also modulates the decision of when to escape. Although looming retinal size is determinant of response latency we found that contrast acts as an additional parameter influencing this decision. As the contrast increases, animals need progressively shorter periods of stimulus integration to initiate the response. Our results comply the notion that the decision to escape is a flexible process initiated with stimulus detection and followed by assessment of the perceived risk posed by the stimulus. Highly disruptive behaviors as the C-start are only observed when a multifactorial threshold that now includes stimulus contrast is crossed.