Behavioral Research Blog - Zebrafish

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.

I recently wrote about other translations from rodent studies to zebrafish, such as the investigation of learning and memory and social behavior. Now it’s time to talk about anxiety and exploration.

Social behavior is a well-known topic of neuroscience research, since it is so often affected in psychiatric disorders. Think of obvious examples such as schizophrenia and autism.