Key points class="unordered" style="list-style-type:disc" id="tjp7354-list-0001">Using high‐speed videos time‐locked with whole‐animal electrical recordings, simultaneous measurement of behavioural kinematics and field potential parameters of C‐start startle responses allowed for discrimination between short‐latency and long‐latency C‐starts (SLCs vs. LLCs) in larval zebrafish.Apart from their latencies, SLC kinematics and SLC field potential parameters were intensity independent.Increasing stimulus intensity increased the probability of evoking an SLC and decreased mean SLC latencies while increasing their precision; subtraction of field potential latencies from SLC latencies revealed a fixed time delay between the two measurements that was intensity independent.The latency and the precision in the latency of the SLC field potentials were linearly correlated to the latencies and precision of the first evoked action potentials (spikes) in hair‐cell afferent neurons of the lateral line.Together, these findings indicate that first spike latency (FSL) is a fast encoding mechanism that can serve to precisely initiate startle responses when speed is critical for survival.
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