Habituation: It's not what you think it is.

In this review, we take a critical look at the methods used to document habituation and the theoretical assumptions that have been made about it. We point out problems associated with measuring habituation merely as a change over the course of repeated presentations of a stimulus. We argue that a common test procedure is essential to assess the relative magnitudes of habituation learning especially when different training procedures are examined.

Developments in associative theory: A tribute to the contributions of Robert A. Rescorla.

The field of associative learning theory was forever changed by the contributions of Robert A. Rescorla. He created an organizational structure that gave us a framework for thinking about the key questions surrounding learning theory: what are the conditions that produce learning?, what is the content of that learning?, and how is that learning expressed in performance? He gave us beautifully sophisticated experimental designs that tackled deep theoretical problems in experimentally clever and elegant ways.

Analysis of vertebrate vision in a 384-well imaging system.

Visual impairment affects 253 million people worldwide and new approaches for prevention and treatment are urgently needed. While small molecules with potential beneficial effects can be examined in various model systems, the in vivo evaluation of visual function remains a challenge. The current study introduces a novel imaging system for measuring visually-guided behaviors in larval zebrafish.

Behavioral studies of stimulus learning in zebrafish larvae.

Within a week of fertilization, a zebrafish larva has developed a robust behavioral repertoire that includes the ability to learn about noncontingent stimuli. I begin this paper with a brief review of the t1-t2 framework in which groups receive different experiences at the first time point (t1) followed by a common assessment at the second time point (t2) and the strengths of this framework for studying stimulus learning. I then describe assays that have been implemented within the t1-t2 framework to demonstrate stimulus learning in the developing zebrafish.

The loss and recovery of vertebrate vision examined in microplates.

Regenerative medicine offers potentially ground-breaking treatments of blindness and low vision. However, as new methodologies are developed, a critical question will need to be addressed: how do we monitor in vivo for functional success? In the present study, we developed novel behavioral assays to examine vision in a vertebrate model system. In the assays, zebrafish larvae are imaged in multiwell or multilane plates while various red, green, blue, yellow or cyan objects are presented to the larvae on a computer screen.