Meha Jadhav

As social animals, we constantly look to our peers when making critical decisions. This is true of schooling fishes like the zebrafish. While schooling, fishes constantly have to keep track of other members to evaluate their own inclinations and come to a consensus. I would like to use zebrafish to determine the brain circuits underlying collective decision-making in fishes. By combining collective behavior, virtual reality, and functional imaging, I can probe a few fundamental questions: How does the presence of conspecifics influence the decisions of individuals? How does the brain determine and combine the decision of conspecifics with that of its own? And how does it resolve conflicts between the two? I started out with electrophysiology recordings from single neurons and now aim to answer questions at a neuronal population level. When not in the lab, I like to curl up with a good book and sip a cup of tea, cook, or go bird-watching.