1 Department of Biology, Chungnam National University, Daejeon, South Korea.
2 Neurological Disorder Center, Qatar Biomedical Research Institute, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Doha, Qatar.
Zebrafish. 2019 Jun;16(3):262-267. doi: 10.1089/zeb.2018.1717. Epub 2019 May 6.
The zebrafish has become an appropriate animal model in the analysis of numerous human brain disorders. A variety of neuropsychiatric conditions and neurodevelopmental disorders are comorbid with abnormal social behavior. Given the translational relevance of zebrafish, multidisciplinary studies employing behavioral, neurobiological, and molecular methods with this species may provide insights into human central nervous system (CNS) disorders. Many of these studies impinge upon our ability to properly induce and quantify the behavior of zebrafish, a relatively understudied aspect of this species. In this study, we investigate how the body size of conspecifics relative to that of the test subject influences social (shoaling) responses in zebrafish. We found a robust preference by wild-type (WT) test zebrafish toward big conspecifics, but not toward smaller conspecifics. Additionally, we tested an autism-relevant zebrafish knockout (KO) model. The KO zebrafish showed impaired social preference compared with WT in the social behavior test. Our results confirm the effect of relative body size on social preference and that the social preference task developed for zebrafish may uncover the function of genes and biological mechanisms potentially associated with human CNS disorders.
斑马鱼已成为分析多种人类脑部疾病的合适动物模型。各种神经精神疾病和神经发育障碍与异常的社会行为并存。鉴于斑马鱼具有转化相关性，采用这种物种的行为、神经生物学和分子方法的多学科研究可能为人类中枢神经系统（CNS）疾病提供深入了解。这些研究中的许多都涉及到我们正确诱导和量化斑马鱼行为的能力，这是该物种相对未被研究的一个方面。在这项研究中，我们研究了同种鱼相对于测试对象的体型大小如何影响斑马鱼的社交（聚集）反应。我们发现野生型（WT）测试斑马鱼对大型同种鱼有强烈的偏好，但对较小的同种鱼没有偏好。此外，我们还测试了一种自闭症相关的斑马鱼敲除（KO）模型。与 WT 相比，KO 斑马鱼在社交行为测试中表现出社交偏好受损。我们的结果证实了相对体型大小对社交偏好的影响，并且为斑马鱼开发的社交偏好任务可能会揭示与人类 CNS 疾病相关的基因和生物学机制的功能。
