{"id":3255,"date":"2014-10-15T17:43:26","date_gmt":"2014-10-15T22:43:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/?p=3255"},"modified":"2014-10-16T10:18:33","modified_gmt":"2014-10-16T15:18:33","slug":"electric-knifefish-signal-their-intentions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/electric-knifefish-signal-their-intentions\/","title":{"rendered":"Electric knifefish signal their intentions<img src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/canada_flag_icon_small.gif\">"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_3256\" style=\"width: 410px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/39383-Gymnotus-carapo-28.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3256\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3256\" src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/39383-Gymnotus-carapo-28.jpg\" alt=\"By studying the electrical pulses emitted by this banded knifefish (Gymnotus carapo) scientists hope to gain insight into what\u2019s going on in the brain when making voluntary decisions. (Photo credit: Tiago P. Carvalho)\" width=\"400\" height=\"110\" srcset=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/39383-Gymnotus-carapo-28.jpg 400w, http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/39383-Gymnotus-carapo-28-300x82.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-3256\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">By studying the electrical pulses emitted by this banded knifefish (Gymnotus carapo) scientists hope to gain insight into what\u2019s going on in the brain when making voluntary decisions. (Photo credit: Tiago P. Carvalho)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Electric fields emitted by knifefish can be used to predict their movements a few seconds before they occur, making these creatures an ideal model organism to study voluntary decision-making. Electric knifefish are nocturnal and live in very murky water, so they feel their way by sensing distortions in an electric field that they emit using a specialized organ.<\/p>\n<p>The study showed that just before they decide to move, the fish emit a much higher rate of electric pulses in a pattern that varies from movement to movement, very similar to the pattern of brain activity observed in higher mammals like humans just before before making a decision to move. When the fish move involuntarily, as when startled, the pattern is less variable and more like an automatic reflex.<\/p>\n<p>Because the electric pulses are so easy to measure non-invasively, electric knifefish could be used to study what is going on in their brain before\u00a0the creatures make a voluntary decision.<\/p>\n<p>The similarity between the brains of fish and mammals means that these studies could be extrapolated to humans.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/jeb.biologists.org\/content\/217\/20\/3591.2\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Original research paper<\/span><\/a>\u00a0published in the\u00a0<em>Journal of Experimental Biology\u00a0<\/em>on\u00a0<strong>October 15,\u00a02014<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em><strong>Names and affiliations of selected\u00a0authors<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<h4 dir=\"ltr\">Leonard Maler, University of Ottawa,\u00a0Ontario<\/h4>\n<h4 dir=\"ltr\">James Jun, University of Ottawa, Ontario<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Electric fields emitted by knifefish can be used to predict their movements a few seconds before they occur, making these creatures an ideal model organism to study voluntary decision-making. Electric knifefish are nocturnal and live in very murky water, so they feel their way by sensing distortions in an electric field that they emit using [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3256,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[39,174,1778,200,50],"class_list":["post-3255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-paper-of-interest","tag-animal-behaviour","tag-animals","tag-fish","tag-neurology","tag-ontario"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/39383-Gymnotus-carapo-28.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4DqbN-Qv","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3255"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3293,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3255\/revisions\/3293"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}