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Tracking single cells in zebrafish brain
1Institute of Neuroscience, State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience, Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 320 Yue-Yang Road, Shanghai, 200031, China.
Abstract:
Changes in cell locations and morphologies shape the brain. Tracking single cells over time is a vital step to study these changes, but densely arranged brain cells impede such observation. Larval zebrafish has become a popular model animal for single-cell tracking, owing to its small, transparent brain and easy genetic manipulation. In this article, we review recent single-cell tracking studies on neurons and non-neuronal cells in the larval zebrafish brain, including soma migration, process refinement, and interactions among cell types. These findings yield new insights regarding how the translocation and morphological changes of individual cells determine brain function.
