Fig. 3

Ventral Telencephalic Lesions Disrupt Social Orienting (A) Schematic of lesion technique, where a dye-coated needle is inserted into the nostril of an anesthetized zebrafish to injure the forebrain. (B) Representative image of lesion track through forebrain (dorsal view). (C) Lesion tracks localized from a subset of zebrafish, color coded to indicate severity of social deficit by location (sagittal view). (D) Representative traces of lesioned zebrafish and control stimulus fish. Dorsally lesioned zebrafish exhibit no social impairments relative to controls (p = 0.974, n = 9); however, ventral injuries result in a severe reduction in both distance from the divider and orienting behavior (∗p = 0.007, n = 7). (E) Average percent time oriented at 45°–90° for lesion experiments before (no stimulus) and after (social stimulus) social stimulus presentation. ∗p < 0.05, repeated-measures mixed model ANOVA with post-hoc simple effects tests. Horizontal bars, mean; vertical bars, ± SEM. (F) Percent time oriented over 5 min period for lesion experiments. (G) Percent time in motion for all lesion groups before and after social stimulus presentation. Horizontal bars, mean; vertical bars, ± SEM. (H) Correlation between orienting behavior and relative distance from divider in dorsally and ventrally lesioned zebrafish. Dorsally lesioned fish retain a significant correlation between orienting and distance from the divider (R2 = 0.889, ∗p < 0.001), but ventrally lesioned fish lose this relationship and more closely resemble the no-stimulus period (R2 = 0.188, p = 0.243). ∗p < 0.05, linear regression.