PUBLICATION
Innate visual discrimination abilities of zebrafish larvae
- Authors
- Gatto, E., Bruzzone, M., Lucon-Xiccato, T.
- ID
- ZDB-PUB-211111-3
- Date
- 2021
- Source
- Behavioural processes 193: 104534 (Journal)
- Registered Authors
- Lucon-Xiccato, Tyrone
- Keywords
- Behaviour, Danio rerio, Innate preference, Perception, Visual discrimination, Zebrafish larvae
- MeSH Terms
-
- Animals
- Discrimination, Psychological
- Larva
- Recognition, Psychology
- Visual Perception*
- Zebrafish*
- PubMed
- 34755638 Full text @ Behav. Processes
Citation
Gatto, E., Bruzzone, M., Lucon-Xiccato, T. (2021) Innate visual discrimination abilities of zebrafish larvae. Behavioural processes. 193:104534.
Abstract
The ability to discriminate between objects visually plays a key role in animals' interactions with their environment because it enables them to recognise companions, prey, and predators. In the zebrafish, Danio rerio, hatching occurs early on during development (48-72 h post fertilisation), and the larvae must forage and evade predators despite their immature sensory and cognitive systems. Using a preference paradigm, we investigated whether larval zebrafish are nonetheless capable of discriminating between visual stimuli. We found that larvae discriminated not only between figures with different colours or different shapes, but also between two identical figures with different orientations and between sets of figures with different numerosities. By manipulating larvae's exposure to objects before the test, we demonstrated that their discrimination abilities are innate and do not depend upon experience. This study highlighted that zebrafish possess relatively sophisticated visual discrimination abilities even at the larval stage. These abilities likely improve larval survival via the recognition of biologically relevant stimuli.
Genes / Markers
Expression
Phenotype
Mutations / Transgenics
Human Disease / Model
Sequence Targeting Reagents
Fish
Orthology
Engineered Foreign Genes
Mapping