PUBLICATION
Sex differences in adult zebrafish anxiolytic-like responses to diazepam and melatonin
- Authors
- Genario, R., Giacomini, A.C.V.V., de Abreu, M.S., Marcon, L., Demin, K.A., Kalueff, A.V.
- ID
- ZDB-PUB-191022-28
- Date
- 2019
- Source
- Neuroscience letters 714: 134548 (Journal)
- Registered Authors
- Kalueff, Allan V.
- Keywords
- anxiety, diazepam, emotional behavior, melatonin, sedation, sex differences
- MeSH Terms
-
- Animals
- Anti-Anxiety Agents/pharmacology
- Behavior, Animal/drug effects*
- Diazepam/pharmacology*
- Female
- Male
- Melatonin/pharmacology*
- Motor Activity/drug effects
- Sex Characteristics*
- Zebrafish
- PubMed
- 31629774 Full text @ Neurosci. Lett.
Citation
Genario, R., Giacomini, A.C.V.V., de Abreu, M.S., Marcon, L., Demin, K.A., Kalueff, A.V. (2019) Sex differences in adult zebrafish anxiolytic-like responses to diazepam and melatonin. Neuroscience letters. 714:134548.
Abstract
Sex differences are an important variable in biomedical research. Zebrafish (Danio rerio) are rapidly becoming a critical novel model organism in translational neuroscience and neuropharmacology. Here, we examine the effects of sex on locomotor activity and anxiety-like behavior in adult zebrafish tested in the novel tank test following their exposure to two clinically relevant, common anxiolytic drugs diazepam and melatonin. While control female zebrafish were more active and anxious than males, both sexes showed anxiolytic responses to melatonin (0.232 mg/L) but only males responded to diazepam (16 µg/L). Revealing gender specificity in pharmacological responses, this study emphasizes the importance of the sex differences in behavioral and pharmacological analyses in zebrafish, and may also be potentially relevant to modeling sex differences in clinical responses to anxiolytic drugs. Collectively, our data support sex differences in zebrafish behavioral responses and reinforce the growing utility of this aquatic model in CNS drug screening.
Genes / Markers
Expression
Phenotype
Mutations / Transgenics
Human Disease / Model
Sequence Targeting Reagents
Fish
Orthology
Engineered Foreign Genes
Mapping