Department of Pharmacology and Neuroscience Program, Tulane University Medical School, 1430 Tulane Avenue, New Orleans, LA 70112, USA.
J Neurosci Methods. 2012 Sep 30;210(2):266-71. doi: 10.1016/j.jneumeth.2012.07.017. Epub 2012 Jul 31.
Zebrafish (Danio rerio) are rapidly becoming an important model organism in neuroscience research, representing an excellent species to study complex social phenotypes. Zebrafish actively form shoals, which can be used to quantify their shoaling behaviors, highly sensitive to various experimental manipulations. Recent advances in video-tracking techniques have enabled simultaneous tracking of multiple subjects, previously assessed by manual scoring of animal behavior. Here we examined the effect of group-size in the shoaling paradigm (ranging from 2 to 8 fish), and evaluated the ability of novel video-tracking tools to accurately track an entire shoal, compared to traditional manual analysis of shoaling phenotypes. To further validate our approach, the effects of the psychotropic drugs lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and 3,4-methlenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), as well as exposure to alarm pheromone, previously shown to affect zebrafish shoaling, were examined. Overall, a significant difference in group size was shown in the 2-fish vs. the 3-, 4-, 5-, 6-, 7- and 8-fish groups. Moreover, both LSD and MDMA treatments reduced shoaling (assessed by increased inter-fish distance) as well as proximity (time spent together) among fish. In contrast, exposure to alarm pheromone yielded an increase in shoaling and in proximity in a time-dependent manner. Importantly, a highly significant correlation for manual vs. automated analyses was revealed across all experiments. Collectively, this study further supports the utility of zebrafish to study social behavior, also demonstrating the capacity of video-tracking technology to assess zebrafish shoaling in a high-throughput and reliable manner.
斑马鱼（Danio rerio）在神经科学研究中迅速成为一种重要的模式生物，是研究复杂社会表型的优秀物种。斑马鱼主动形成鱼群，可以用来量化它们的鱼群行为，对各种实验操作高度敏感。最近视频跟踪技术的进步使得能够同时跟踪多个个体，以前是通过手动评估动物行为来进行的。在这里，我们检查了鱼群范式中群体大小的影响（范围从 2 到 8 条鱼），并评估了新的视频跟踪工具与传统的鱼群表型手动分析相比，准确跟踪整个鱼群的能力。为了进一步验证我们的方法，检查了致幻药物麦角酸二乙酰胺（LSD）和 3,4-亚甲二氧基甲基苯丙胺（MDMA）的作用，以及以前显示会影响斑马鱼鱼群的警报信息素暴露的作用。总体而言，在 2 条鱼与 3、4、5、6、7 和 8 条鱼的组之间显示出群体大小的显著差异。此外，LSD 和 MDMA 处理均降低了鱼群的聚集（通过增加鱼之间的距离来评估）以及鱼之间的接近程度（一起度过的时间）。相比之下，警报信息素的暴露会导致鱼群和接近程度随着时间的推移而增加。重要的是，在所有实验中，手动与自动分析之间显示出高度显著的相关性。总的来说，这项研究进一步支持使用斑马鱼研究社会行为的效用，也证明了视频跟踪技术以高通量和可靠的方式评估斑马鱼鱼群的能力。
