Behavioral phenotyping in zebrafish: comparison of three behavioral quantification methods.

Rachel Blaser; Robert Gerlai

doi:10.3758/bf03192800

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PubMed · 17186756

Behavioral phenotyping in zebrafish: comparison of three behavioral quantification methods.

Rachel Blaser·Robert Gerlai

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Abstract

The zebrafish has been popular in developmental biology and genetics, but its brain function has rarely been studied. High-throughput screening of mutation or drug-induced changes in brain function requires simple and automatable behavioral tests. This article compares three behavioral quantification methods in four simple behavioral paradigms that test a range of characteristics of adult zebrafish, including novelty-induced responses, social behavior, aggression, and predator-model-induced responses. Two quantification methods, manual recording and computerized videotracking of location and activity, yielded very similar results, suggesting that automated videotracking reliably measures activity parameters and will allow high-throughput screening. However, observation-based event recording of posture patterns was found generally not to correlate with videotracking measures, suggesting that further refinement of automated behavior quantification may be considered.

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Aggression Analysis of Variance Animals Behavior, Animal Behavioral Sciences Escape Reaction Exploratory Behavior Female Male Motor Activity Phenotype Reference Values Social Behavior Statistics, Nonparametric Zebrafish Comparative Study Journal Article

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Rachel Blaser, Robert Gerlai. 2006. Behavioral phenotyping in zebrafish: comparison of three behavioral quantification methods.. https://doi.org/10.3758/bf03192800

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