Spatial parameters encoded in the spatial map of the blind Mexican cave fish, Astyanax fasciatus

Abstract

Although much is now known about the mechanisms that insects, birds and mammals use to orient within familiar areas, our knowledge of such mechanisms in fish is scant. I used the transformational approach to test whether the blind Mexican cave fish can encode shape and size in an internal representation of space. These fish are excellent study animals, as they swim at high velocities (presumably to enhance lateral line organ stimulation) when faced with unfamiliar landmarks or environments. As they are blind, potentially confounding cues from visual global landmarks are unavailable. The fish learnt a square configuration of four landmarks and so must have been be able to encode spatial relationships between the elements within this configuration. After learning landmark arrays, the cave fish showed significant dishabituation (swimming velocity was increased) when exposed to landmark transformations. The fish must therefore have been comparing the environment that they perceived with an internal representation of the environment that they had learnt. The results show that blind Mexican cave fish can encode size (absolute distance between landmarks) and possibly also shape within their spatial maps.