Virtual realities are powerful tools to analyze and manipulate interactions between animals and their environment and to enable measurements of neuronal activity during behavior. In many species, however, optical access to the brain and/or the behavioral repertoire are limited. We developed a high-resolution virtual reality for head-restrained adult zebrafish, which exhibit cognitive behaviors not shown by larvae. We noninvasively measured activity throughout the dorsal telencephalon by multiphoton calcium imaging. Fish in the virtual reality showed regular swimming patterns and were attracted to animations of conspecifics. Manipulations of visuo-motor feedback revealed neurons that responded selectively to the mismatch between the expected and the actual visual consequences of motor output. Such error signals were prominent in multiple telencephalic areas, consistent with models of predictive processing. A virtual reality system for adult zebrafish therefore provides opportunities to analyze neuronal processing mechanisms underlying higher brain functions including decision making, associative learning, and social interactions.

虚拟现实是分析和操纵动物与其环境之间的相互作用以及能够测量行为期间的神经元活动的强大工具。然而，在许多物种中，对大脑和/或行为库的光学访问是有限的。我们为头部受限的成年斑马鱼开发了一种高分辨率虚拟现实，它们表现出幼虫未表现出的认知行为。我们通过多光子钙成像无创地测量了整个背侧端脑的活动。虚拟现实中的鱼表现出规律的游泳模式，并被同种动物的动画所吸引。视觉运动反馈的操作揭示了神经元对运动输出的预期和实际视觉结果之间的不匹配做出选择性反应。这种错误信号在多个端脑区域很突出，与预测处理模型一致。因此，成年斑马鱼的虚拟现实系统提供了分析高级大脑功能（包括决策、联想学习和社交互动）的神经元处理机制的机会。