The National Science Foundation (NSF) has granted $100,000 to support professor of biology Mark Braford's research project "Vertebrate Forebrain Organization: Ray-Finned Fishes." The grant is continuing; subject to availability the foundation expects to award an additional $103,000 for fiscal year 1996 and $106,000 for fiscal year 1997.
Braford, who has been studying fish forebrains for several years, is interested in their evolutionary relationship to mammalian brains. "The brains of all vertebrate animals have the same major parts," he explains, "but evolutionary forces have produced great differences in relative size, organization, and functional specialization."
In mammals the forebrain includes the cerebral cortex, which is involved in perception and cognition, and the amygdala, which is involved in emotions. During the grant period Braford is exploring his own hypothesis "that a particular region of the forebrain of fishes is homologous (genetically related) to the amygdala of mammals," he says. With tracer substances, Braford will study neural connections in the forebrain of two fish species, and he will use antibodies "to localize certain chemicals used by nerve cells to communicate with one another. Patterns of connections and combinations of certain chemicals can serve as fingerprints for groups of nerve cells, thereby aiding in the identification of homologous structures," he says.
It is sometimes easier to recognize similarities in brain structures early in an animal's embryonic development, rather than after adult specialization occurs, Braford says. To study the embryonic development of the brain of the African knifefish, Braford is trying to breed that species in the laboratory for the first time. In Africa it breeds during the rainy season. In Oberlin aquariums Braford and neuroscience major Kayla Ennis '96 are simulating rainy weather with three-hour showers each day. "If we succeed, new clues leading to more accurate comparisons between various forebrains may emerge," Braford says. Research assistant Sandra Ronan and several students besides Ennis are helping Braford with his research.
The new grant is the fourth that the NSF has awarded to Braford and the second since he came to Oberlin in 1986 (Observer 16 March 1989).
