PUBLICATION

Statistical Analysis of Zebrafish Locomotor Behaviour by Generalized Linear Mixed Models

Authors
Liu, Y., Ma, P., Cassidy, P.A., Carmer, R., Zhang, G., Venkatraman, P., Brown, S.A., Pang, C.P., Zhong, W., Zhang, M., Leung, Y.F.
ID
ZDB-PUB-170609-4
Date
2017
Source
Scientific Reports   7: 2937 (Journal)
Registered Authors
Leung, Yuk Fai, Venkatraman, Prahatha
Keywords
Retina, Visual system
MeSH Terms
  • Algorithms
  • Analysis of Variance
  • Animals
  • Behavior, Animal*
  • Larva
  • Life Cycle Stages
  • Linear Models*
  • Locomotion*
  • Models, Statistical
  • Motor Activity*
  • Species Specificity
  • Time Factors
  • Zebrafish/physiology*
PubMed
28592855 Full text @ Sci. Rep.
Abstract
Upon a drastic change in environmental illumination, zebrafish larvae display a rapid locomotor response. This response can be simultaneously tracked from larvae arranged in multi-well plates. The resulting data have provided new insights into neuro-behaviour. The features of these data, however, present a challenge to traditional statistical tests. For example, many larvae display little or no movement. Thus, the larval responses have many zero values and are imbalanced. These responses are also measured repeatedly from the same well, which results in correlated observations. These analytical issues were addressed in this study by the generalized linear mixed model (GLMM). This approach deals with binary responses and characterizes the correlation of observations in the same group. It was used to analyze a previously reported dataset. Before applying the GLMM, the activity values were transformed to binary responses (movement vs. no movement) to reduce data imbalance. Moreover, the GLMM estimated the variations among the effects of different well locations, which would eliminate the location effects when two biological groups or conditions were compared. By addressing the data-imbalance and location-correlation issues, the GLMM effectively quantified true biological effects on zebrafish locomotor response.
Genes / Markers
Figures
Expression
Phenotype
Mutations / Transgenics
Human Disease / Model
Sequence Targeting Reagents
Fish
Antibodies
Orthology
Engineered Foreign Genes
Mapping