Digital Fish

Take a look at a tropical fish tank and you might spot stripy little zebrafish darting around the weeds in search of food such as tiny shrimp. While they’re popular among aquarium fans, zebrafish also hold a special place in science. They’re a good stand-in for studying many of the processes of life, from the earliest moments of life as an embryo develops from a single cell to understanding how the brain works. Although they may be small and relatively simple, zebrafish still demonstrate a range of complex behaviours, making them ideal subjects for neuroscience research. To support the neuroscience research community, researchers have merged together many different types of images from adult zebrafish brains to create an interactive three-dimensional digital atlas. The atlas enables scientists to take a closer look at how the zebrafish brain is put together and get clues as to what’s happening in health and disease.

Written by Kat Arney

Kat Arney

Writer

Dr Kat Arney is an award-winning science writer, broadcaster and public speaker, and is the founder and Creative Director of First Create The Media.

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• Image adapted from work by Justin W. Kenney and Patrick E. Steadman, and colleagues
• Program in Neurosciences and Mental Health, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in bioRxiv, September 2021 (not peer reviewed)