PreyTouch: a touchscreen-based closed-loop system for studying predator-prey interactions.

The ability to catch prey is crucial for survival and reproduction and is subject to strong natural selection across predators. Prey capture demands the orchestrated activation of multiple brain regions and the interplay between sensory processing, decision-making, and motor execution. These factors, together with the ubiquity of prey capture across species makes it appealing for comparative studies across neuroscience and ecology.

Temperature-robust rapid eye movement and slow wave sleep in the lizard Laudakia vulgaris.

During sleep our brain switches between two starkly different brain states - slow wave sleep (SWS) and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. While this two-state sleep pattern is abundant across birds and mammals, its existence in other vertebrates is not universally accepted, its evolutionary emergence is unclear and it is undetermined whether it is a fundamental property of vertebrate brains or an adaptation specific to homeotherms. To address these questions, we conducted electrophysiological recordings in the Agamid lizard, Laudakia vulgaris during sleep.