Flow Sensing
As all animals live immersed in fluids, nearly every aspect of their physiology and behavior will be heavily influenced by the properties and displacements of the surrounding air or water. In the specific case of aquatic animals, their staggering diversity implies the existence of multiple sensory and locomotion modes to navigate their hydrodynamic environment. Using a quantitative behavioral approach, our group aims to understand the basic principles governing flow navigation in fish and amphibians.
Morpho-Functional Dissection of the Lateral Line Sensory System
We aim to describe the molecular identity, wiring logic and behavioural roles of the Lateral Line (LL), a sub-division of the octavolateralis system that enables aquatic vertebrates to sense electric and mechanical cues in their environment.
We use live imaging and single cell genomics techniques to describe the morphogenetic and transcriptional mechanisms leading to receptor organ formation and hair cell specification in the embryonic LL system.
We perform protein and RNA labeling techniques followed by tissue clearing, confocal and light-sheet imaging to characterize the anatomical distribution and the cellular architecture of LL receptor organs in the larvae of fish and amphibians.
We use X-ray microtomography and light sheet imaging of transgenic and virus-labeled animals to describe the connectivity and wiring logic between LL receptor organs and the central nervous system.
We perform long-term recordings, pose estimation and unsupervised clustering algorithms to identify the consequences of LL functional manipulations on the behavior of fish and amphibians.
