PUBLICATION
Paradoxical effects of feeding status on food consumption and learning performance in zebrafish (Danio rerio)
- Authors
- Abozaid, A., Gerlai, R.
- ID
- ZDB-PUB-230824-47
- Date
- 2023
- Source
- Progress in neuro-psychopharmacology & biological psychiatry 128: 110846 (Journal)
- Registered Authors
- Gerlai, Robert T.
- Keywords
- Food reward, Learning and memory, Motivation, Satiation, Zebrafish
- MeSH Terms
- none
- PubMed
- 37611652 Full text @ Prog. Neuropsychopharmacol. Biol. Psychiatry
Citation
Abozaid, A., Gerlai, R. (2023) Paradoxical effects of feeding status on food consumption and learning performance in zebrafish (Danio rerio). Progress in neuro-psychopharmacology & biological psychiatry. 128:110846.
Abstract
Associative learning is often studied using food reward as the unconditioned stimulus (US). With warm-blooded species, to get the subject more motivated the solution has been to feed less, making the subject hungrier. Here we show the opposite with zebrafish. We randomly assigned zebrafish to two groups: a once-a-day-fed and a five-times-a-day-fed group, with the same amount of food fed per occasion for fish of both groups, a feeding regimen that lasted for three months. Subsequently, we trained fish by pairing food (US) with a red cue card (the conditioned stimulus, CS), which were placed together in one arm of a plus-maze across eight training sessions. We also ran unpaired training, in which the CS and US were presented in different arms. We found the previously once-a-day-fed zebrafish to consume less food throughout habituation and training sessions compared to the previously five-times-a-day-fed ones. Furthermore, five-times-a-day-fed fish in the paired group swam significantly closer to the CS during a post-training probe trial compared to the five-times-a-day-fed unpaired fish, a paired training effect that was absent in once-a-day-fed fish. Groups did not differ in health or general activity. In sum, elevated chronic feeding improved food consumption and enhanced learning and memory performance without affecting activity levels in adult zebrafish.
Genes / Markers
Expression
Phenotype
Mutations / Transgenics
Human Disease / Model
Sequence Targeting Reagents
Fish
Orthology
Engineered Foreign Genes
Mapping