Reliability of behavioral test with fish: How neurotransmitters may exert neuromodulatory effects and alter the biological responses to neuroactive agents.

Toxic agents such as pharmaceuticals and pesticides are continuously dispersed especially in the aquatic environment, as a result of human use. Their presence in the environment presents serious concerns, since these compounds interfere with the normal function of the central nervous system (CNS), causing behavior alterations, whose consequences are difficult to predict. However, behavioral responses, even those that occur after exposure to neurotoxic agents, might be modulated by the release of neurotransmitters in the brain of exposed organisms, making even more difficult to ascertain the real consequences of pollution by neurotoxic or neuroactive agents. This study aimed to understand the potential of dopamine as neuromodulator in cases of acute exposure to a pesticide (the carbamate carbofuran) and to a therapeutic agent (the benzodiazepinic drug diazepam) in the freshwater fish Gambusia holbrooki. After acute exposure to both carbofuran and to diazepam it was possible to observe deleterious alterations in the motor function, reflected by significant reductions of both average speed and distance in exposed animals. These changes were later diminished and reverted by dopamine exposure. Despite the indications obtained from our experiments, more research is needed to clarify the consequences of these behavior alterations in a more integrative perspective, namely by adding behavioral endpoints of increased ecological relevance to the adopted experimental design.