PUBLICATION

Antipredatory behavior of zebrafish: Adaptive function and a tool for translational research

Authors
Gerlai, R.
ID
ZDB-PUB-130729-13
Date
2013
Source
Evolutionary Psychology   11(3): 591-605 (Review)
Registered Authors
Gerlai, Robert T.
Keywords
antipredatory behavior, anxiety, fear, predators, zebrafish
MeSH Terms
  • Adaptation, Physiological/physiology*
  • Animals
  • Anxiety/physiopathology
  • Behavior, Animal/physiology*
  • Brain
  • Fear/physiology*
  • Translational Research, Biomedical
  • Zebrafish/physiology*
PubMed
23864295
Abstract

The zebrafish is gaining popularity in behavioral brain research. It may be a cost-effective tool with which we can improve our understanding of the biological and genetic mechanisms of human brain function and dysfunction. Some, myself and collaborators included, have argued that such translational relevance may be best achieved if one considers the ecology and species-specific characteristics of the study organism. In this review, I focus on our own studies investigating zebrafish fear responses, which may be utilized in analyzing the mechanisms of fear and anxiety, and which may be used for screening anxiolytic drugs. I review how zebrafish respond to their natural and synthetic alarm substance as well as to other fear-inducing stimuli, including sympatric and allopatric predatory fish, sympatric or allopatric harmless fish, moving (animated) images of predatory fish and moving images of abstract shapes. I discuss the behavioral responses these stimuli elicit, summarize the methods of the quantification of the behaviors, and speculate about their possible adaptive nature. Although we utilize complex visual stimuli and do not yet know what key features zebrafish may be sensitive to, our results, together with those published by others, imply that this simple vertebrate may have a bright future in behavioral brain research.

Genes / Markers
Figures
Expression
Phenotype
Mutations / Transgenics
Human Disease / Model
Sequence Targeting Reagents
Fish
Antibodies
Orthology
Engineered Foreign Genes
Mapping