The 'Math' gene used by fish to calculate could help us treat human neurodevelopmental diseases

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Fish help researchers trace the origins of how the brain calculates math, reports a review in Frontiers in Neuroanatomy. An international team has reviewed more than 200 publications, which together show that fish perceive quantity using parts of their brains similar to those used by mammals and birds. Research is still underway to find the specific brain circuits that enable number processing, but these findings could eventually help treat human ailments that impair math skills.

“Fish is on par with other animals in terms of a sense of quantity,” said the correspondent author Prof. Giorgio Vallortigara from the University of Trento in Italy. “There are species, particularly the zebrafish, which are ideal models for studying the molecular and genetic basis of a sense of quantity. This could have important implications for neurodevelopmental diseases that affect number cognition, such as developmental dyscalculia, which impairs math skills in up to 6% children.”

The video shows the experiment described in Prof Vallortigara’s lab and reported in Messina et al (2022). On the left side is shown an example of the procedure for habituation of zebrafish to a certain number; on the right one can see that during the dishabituation test when the numerosity suddenly changed, the zebrafish showed an increase in staying close to the stimulus to explore new things. The controls show that the zebrafish responds to such numbers and does not simply change the area or spatial position of the dots. Credit: Giorgio Vallortigara / University of Trento

Lessons from fish

Estimating quantity is very important for fish survival. Vallortigara and his colleagues started with a collection of behavioral studies showing that fish rival mammals and birds in recognizing the difference between larger and smaller quantities—food or other fish, for example.

Many investigations also use behavior to try to understand how fish measure quantity, but Vallortigara’s team found that this requires closer scrutiny at the cellular and genetic levels. To answer this question, researchers have used brain imaging to show that fish use the same parts of the brain as many other vertebrates.

“Another open issue is whether numerical quantities really count as abstract properties or whether animals always think of numbers based on other cues from their environment (such as surface area, contour length, or density),” Vallortigara said. “However, the experiments described in this review show that pure amounts are indeed used by fish.”

Mathematical evolution

At a more detailed level, other studies are moving closer to finding the specific neurons that make up the circuits that process quantities, including those specific to discrete quantities. Genetic analysis also reveals exactly how similar these strategies are between different species.

“The big ongoing question is whether the mechanisms of quantity cognition in different parts of the animal kingdom evolved from a common ancestor or separately as a result of convergent evolution under the same selective pressure,” Vallortigara added.

At the genetic level, zebrafish-like model systems are closely related to humans and many researchers have used zebrafish to better understand learning disabilities in humans.

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Experiments show archerfish can distinguish between numbers

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Further information:
Andrea Messina et al, Quantity as a fish sees it: Behavior and neurobiology, Frontiers in Neuroanatomy (2022). DOI: 10.3389/fnana.2022.943504, www.frontiersin.org/articles/1 … ana.2022.943504/full

Quote: The ‘Math’ gene that fish use to calculate could help us treat human neurodevelopmental diseases (2022, 14 July) retrieved 14 July 2022 from https://phys.org/news/2022-07-math-genes-fish-human – neurodevelopment.html

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