Behavioral Research Blog - Zebrafish

By this point, we do not need to tell you how popular zebrafish are. We also probably do not need to point out the great technological advances that are being made in research because of the use of optogenetics.

Ever heard of quantum dots? These dots are nanoparticles made of a semiconductor material, which have unique optical properties, making them of great interest for fields such as biological imaging, medical diagnostics.

Video tracking is used to track a widevariety of animal species in even more different test arenas. From insects of 1 mm on leaf discs, to monkeys in a cage, or zebra fish in an aquarium.

Often in animal research, animals with a certain genetic alteration are compared to a “wild-type”. One might assume that there is no differences between wild-types, but many different strains of wild-type animals are used.

Zebrafish have proven to be a good model for Parkinson’s Disease (PD) research. They express several highly conserved genes that are associated with PD.

Zebrafish are a popular model of choice for many researchers, including chronobiologists. That’s because zebrafish rapidly develop their ‘inner clock’ (circadian system) – and because this system is highly light-entrainable.

Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is one of the main neurodegenerative diseases and many researchers are involved in investigating this disease and developing treatments

Zebrafish are not the first species one might think of as being exposed to alcohol in their natural environment.

Recognizing the lack of hands-on education, Dr. Kalueff has started organizing zebrafish behavioral neuroscience and phenotyping workshops. The workshops ran just before and after the SfN annual meeting, October 2012.

I have been reading a lot about zebrafish research lately and I thought it would be nice to share some of my favorite articles with you.