Experience influences behavior, but little is known about how experience is encoded in the brain, and how changes in neural activity are implemented at a network level to improve performance. Here we investigate how differences in experience impact brain circuitry and behavior in larval zebrafish prey capture. We find that experience of live prey compared to inert food increases capture success by boosting capture initiation. In response to live prey, animals with and without prior experience of live prey show activity in visual areas (pretectum and optic tectum) and motor areas (cerebellum and hindbrain), with similar visual area retinotopic maps of prey position. However, prey-experienced animals more readily initiate capture in response to visual area activity and have greater visually-evoked activity in two forebrain areas: the telencephalon and habenula. Consequently, disruption of habenular neurons reduces capture performance in prey-experienced fish. Together, our results suggest that experience of prey strengthens prey-associated visual drive to the forebrain, and that this lowers the threshold for prey-associated visual activity to trigger activity in motor areas, thereby improving capture performance.

中文翻译：

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斑马鱼幼虫捕获猎物的经验、回路动力学和前脑募集


经验会影响行为，但人们对经验如何在大脑中编码以及如何在网络层面实现神经活动的变化以提高表现知之甚少。在这里，我们研究了经验差异如何影响斑马鱼幼虫捕获猎物的大脑回路和行为。我们发现，与惰性食物相比，对活猎物的体验可以通过促进捕获启动来提高捕获成功率。为了响应活体猎物，无论是否有活体猎物经验的动物，都会在视觉区域（前顶盖和视顶盖）和运动区域（小脑和后脑）表现出活动，并具有相似的猎物位置视觉区域视网膜专题图。然而，有猎物经验的动物更容易根据视觉区域活动发起捕获，并且在两个前脑区域（端脑和缰核）具有更大的视觉诱发活动。因此，缰核神经元的破坏会降低经历过捕食的鱼类的捕获性能。总之，我们的结果表明，猎物的经验增强了前脑与猎物相关的视觉驱动，这降低了与猎物相关的视觉活动触发运动区域活动的阈值，从而提高了捕获性能。