The postembryonic brain exhibits experience-dependent development, in which sensory experience guides normal brain growth. This neuroplasticity is thought to occur primarily through structural and functional changes in pre-existing neurons. Whether neurogenesis also mediates the effects of experience on brain growth is unclear. Here, we characterized the importance of motor experience on postembryonic neurogenesis in larval zebrafish. We found that movement maintains an expanded pool of forebrain neural precursors by promoting progenitor self-renewal over the production of neurons. Physical cues associated with swimming (bodily movement) increase neurogenesis and these cues appear to be conveyed by dorsal root ganglia (DRG) in the zebrafish body: DRG-deficient larvae exhibit attenuated neurogenic responses to movement and targeted photoactivation of DRG in immobilized larvae expands the pallial pool of proliferative cells. Our results demonstrate the importance of movement in neurogenic brain growth and reveal a fundamental sensorimotor association that may couple early motor and brain development.

中文翻译：

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运动通过幼虫斑马鱼的外周神经反馈维持前脑神经发生

胚胎后大脑表现出依赖于经验的发展，其中感官经验指导正常的大脑生长。这种神经可塑性被认为主要是通过预先存在的神经元的结构和功能变化而发生的。神经发生是否也介导了经验对大脑生长的影响尚不清楚。在这里，我们描述了运动经验对斑马鱼幼虫胚胎后神经发生的重要性。我们发现运动通过促进祖细胞自我更新而不是神经元的产生来维持扩大的前脑神经前体池。与游泳（身体运动）相关的物理线索会增加神经发生，这些线索似乎是由斑马鱼体内的背根神经节 (DRG) 传达的：DRG 缺陷的幼虫对运动的神经源性反应减弱，固定化幼虫中 DRG 的靶向光激活扩大了增殖细胞的苍白池。我们的研究结果证明了运动在神经源性大脑发育中的重要性，并揭示了可能与早期运动和大脑发育相结合的基本感觉运动关联。