behavioral-tracking-and-neuromast-imaging-of-mexican-cavefish

Behavioral Tracking and Neuromast Imaging of Mexican Cavefish

Cave-dwelling animals have evolved a series of morphological and behavioral traits to adapt to their perpetually dark and food-sparse environments. Among ...

University of Hawai'i at Mānoa

An essential question in evolutionary biology is whether shifts in a set of polygenic behaviors share a genetic basis across species. Such a behavioral shift is seen in the cave-dwelling Mexican tetra, Astyanax mexicanus. Relative to surface-dwelling conspecifics, cavefish do not school (asocial), are hyperactive and sleepless, adhere to a particular vibration stimulus (imbalanced attention), behave repetitively, and show elevated stress hormone levels. Interestingly, these traits largely overlap with the core symptoms of human autism spectrum disorder (ASD), raising the possibility that these behavioral traits are underpinned by a similar set of genes (i.e. a repeatedly used suite of genes).

Alexander Settle

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