PUBLICATION
Maturation of shoaling behavior is accompanied by changes in the dopaminergic and serotoninergic systems in zebrafish
- Authors
- Buske, C., and Gerlai, R.
- ID
- ZDB-PUB-110613-34
- Date
- 2012
- Source
- Dev. Psychobiol. 54(1): 28-35 (Journal)
- Registered Authors
- Gerlai, Robert T.
- Keywords
- zebrafish, shoaling, social behavior, dopamine, serotonin, DOPAC, 5-HIAA, development
- MeSH Terms
-
- Animals
- Behavior, Animal/physiology*
- Brain/metabolism*
- Dopamine/metabolism*
- Female
- Hydroxyindoleacetic Acid/metabolism
- Male
- Serotonin/metabolism*
- Social Behavior
- Zebrafish/metabolism*
- PubMed
- 21656763 Full text @ Dev. Psychobiol.
Citation
Buske, C., and Gerlai, R. (2012) Maturation of shoaling behavior is accompanied by changes in the dopaminergic and serotoninergic systems in zebrafish. Dev. Psychobiol.. 54(1):28-35.
Abstract
The zebrafish has been one of the preferred vertebrate model organisms of developmental biology, and is becoming an important research tool for behavioral neuroscience and behavior genetics. A prominent feature of zebrafish is their strong shoaling tendency. Most recently, the first study investigating the development of shoaling in zebrafish demonstrated that a few days after hatching zebrafish do not shoal, but that shoaling tendency gradually increases during development. The current study investigates this phenomenon using the nearest neighbor distance, a measure most frequently employed for the quantification of shoal cohesion in fish. We demonstrate that shoal cohesion increases with age, while thigmotaxis, “wall hugging,” does not show a consistent age-dependent change. The mechanisms underlying the maturation of shoaling are unknown. HPLC analysis of whole brain extracts finds the concentration of dopamine, DOPAC, serotonin, and 5-HIAA normalized to total brain protein weight to increase with age. Although the behavioral and neurochemical results are only correlative at this point, they may open a new avenue into the investigation of the mechanisms and development of social behavior in zebrafish.
Genes / Markers
Expression
Phenotype
Mutations / Transgenics
Human Disease / Model
Sequence Targeting Reagents
Fish
Orthology
Engineered Foreign Genes
Mapping