Coursera Spring Sale
40% Off Coursera Plus Annual!
Grab it
Explore the neural mechanisms of balance and vestibular sensation through this 20-minute webinar presented by Dr. Yunlu Zhu, a postdoctoral fellow at NYU Grossman School of Medicine's Neuroscience Institute. Discover how vertebrate animals use the evolutionarily conserved vestibular system to sense linear and angular acceleration, and learn why vestibular sensation is crucial for maintaining balance during locomotion. Examine the innovative use of larval zebrafish as a model organism for studying balance behavior, taking advantage of their inherently unstable, front-heavy body plane that requires active swimming to prevent nose-down rotation. Learn about SAMPL (scalable apparatus to measure posture and locomotion), a newly developed system that employs marker-less pose estimation algorithms to extract posture and locomotion data from small animals. Understand how researchers combine high-throughput behavioral assays, 2-photon laser ablation, and functional imaging techniques to identify the neuronal substrates underlying vestibular control of balance. Gain insights into Dr. Zhu's research on how vestibular processing impairment leads to falls in neurological diseases, including his work on establishing a zebrafish model that recapitulates molecular and behavioral hallmarks of tauopathy. Discover the foundations being laid for comprehending neural mechanisms of vestibular perturbations, compensation, and rehabilitation under pathological conditions, with broader implications for understanding balance deficits in neurological disorders.
