PUBLICATION
Shoaling develops with age in Zebrafish (Danio rerio)
- Authors
- Buske, C., and Gerlai, R.
- ID
- ZDB-PUB-100929-23
- Date
- 2011
- Source
- Progress in neuro-psychopharmacology & biological psychiatry 35(6): 1409-15 (Journal)
- Registered Authors
- Gerlai, Robert T.
- Keywords
- Age-dependent behavioral changes, Social behavior, Shoaling, Zebra danio, Zebrafish
- MeSH Terms
-
- Aging/psychology*
- Animals
- Cross-Sectional Studies
- Female
- Longitudinal Studies
- Male
- Models, Animal
- Social Behavior*
- Swimming
- Zebrafish/growth & development*
- PubMed
- 20837077 Full text @ Prog. Neuropsychopharmacol. Biol. Psychiatry
Citation
Buske, C., and Gerlai, R. (2011) Shoaling develops with age in Zebrafish (Danio rerio). Progress in neuro-psychopharmacology & biological psychiatry. 35(6):1409-15.
Abstract
The biological mechanisms of human social behavior are complex. Animal models may facilitate the understanding of these mechanisms and may help one to develop treatment strategies for abnormal human social behavior, a core symptom in numerous clinical conditions. The zebrafish is perhaps the most social vertebrate among commonly used laboratory species. Given its practical features and the numerous genetic tools developed for it, it should be a promising tool. Zebrafish shoal, i.e. from a tight multimember groups, but the ontogenesis of this behavior has not been described. Analyzing the development of shoaling is a step towards discovering the mechanisms of this behavior. Here we study age-dependent changes of shoaling in zebrafish from day 7 post fertilization to over 5months of age by measuring the distance between all pairs of fish in freely swimming groups of ten subjects. Our longitudinal (repeated measure within subject) and cross sectional (non-repeated measure between subject) analyses both demonstrated a significant increase of shoaling with age (decreased distance between shoal members). Given the sophisticated genetic and developmental biology methods already available for zebrafish, we argue that our behavioral results open a new avenue towards the understanding of the development of vertebrate social behavior and of its mechanisms and abnormalities.
Genes / Markers
Expression
Phenotype
Mutations / Transgenics
Human Disease / Model
Sequence Targeting Reagents
Fish
Orthology
Engineered Foreign Genes
Mapping