Polari zation vision in goldfish: behavioral response dependence with stimulus position

AGUIRRE, CRISTIAN; BERÓN DE ASTRADA, MARTÍN; MEDAN, VIOLETA

Buenos ASires

Congreso; 2nd Congress of the Federation of Latin-American and Caribbean Societies for Neuroscience (FALAN); 2016

Federation of Latin-American and Caribbean Societies for Neuroscience (FALAN)

To animals with a visual system sensitive to polarizedlight such as goldfish (Carassius auratus) objects diffusingor differentially reflecting polarized light could providevaluable information about its environment and be used fornavigation and object detection. We have recently foundthat goldfish responds to polarized light expanding discs(loom) with a typical startle response (C-start) with a smallerprobability (25% startled, N=24) than to black-over-whitecontrol looms (100% startled, N=14). In those experimentsboth the contrast intensity and the polarized stimuli wereprojected by a screen hanging on top of the aquariumposing the question about the efficacy of the polarizedstimuli in other parts of the visual field of the animal. Here,we compare the polarization sensitivity to stimuli presentedto the dorsal or lateral field of view of the goldfish. Inaddition, we consider the possibility that non-startlinganimals could nevertheless change their swimmingbehavior after a polarized loom. We thus perform a detailedanalysis of the distance of the fish head to the center of thearena, its distance to the aquarium wall, its activity prior tothe start of the stimulus and after the end of the expansion.The result of this analysis is discussed in the context of howthe relative position of the fish with respect to the stimulusat the start of the stimulation affects its behavioral response.