Neurotoxicity Assessment in Adult Danio rerio using a Battery of Behavioral Tests in a Single Tank

Summary

Here, we present a comprehensive behavioral test battery, including the novel tank, Shoaling, and social preference tests, to effectively determine the potential neurotoxic effects of chemicals (e.g., methamphetamine and glyphosate) on adult zebrafish using a single tank. This method is relevant to neurotoxicity and environmental research.

Abstract

The presence of neuropathological effects proved to be, for many years, the main endpoint for assessing the neurotoxicity of a chemical substance. However, in the last 50 years, the effects of chemicals on the behavior of model species have been actively investigated. Progressively, behavioral endpoints were incorporated into neurotoxicological screening protocols, and these functional outcomes are now routinely used to identify and determine the potential neurotoxicity of chemicals. Behavioral assays in adult zebrafish provide a standardized and reliable means to study a wide range of behaviors, including anxiety, social interaction, learning, memory, and addiction. Behavioral assays in adult zebrafish typically involve placing the fish in an experimental arena and recording and analyzing their behavior using video tracking software. Fish can be exposed to various stimuli, and their behavior can be quantified using a variety of metrics. The novel tank test is one of the most accepted and widely used tests to study anxiety-like behavior in fish. The shoaling and social preference tests are useful in studying the social behavior of zebrafish. This assay is particularly interesting since the behavior of the entire shoal is studied. These assays have proven to be highly reproducible and sensitive to pharmacological and genetic manipulations, making them valuable tools for studying the neural circuits and molecular mechanisms underlying behavior. Additionally, these assays can be used in drug screening to identify compounds that may be potential modulators of behavior.

We will show in this work how to apply behavioral tools in fish neurotoxicology, analyzing the effect of methamphetamine, a recreational drug, and glyphosate, an environmental pollutant. The results demonstrate the significant contribution of behavioral assays in adult zebrafish to the understanding of the neurotoxicological effects of environmental pollutants and drugs, in addition to providing insights into the molecular mechanisms that may alter neuronal function.

Introduction

The zebrafish (Danio rerio) is a popular model vertebrate species for ecotoxicology, drug discovery, and safety pharmacology studies. Its low cost, well-established molecular genetic tools, and conservation of key physiological processes involved in the morphogenesis and maintenance of the nervous system make zebrafish an ideal animal model for neuroscience research, including neurobehavioral toxicology^1,2. The main endpoint for evaluating the neurotoxicity of a chemical was, until recently, the presence of neuropathological effects. Lately, however, behavioral endpoints have been incorporated into ne....

Protocol

Strict compliance with ethical standards guarantees the welfare and proper treatment of the zebrafish used for experimentation. All experimental procedures were carried out under the guidelines established by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (CID-CSIC). The protocols and results presented below were performed under the license granted by the local government (agreement number 11336).

1. Animal housing for behavioral testing

1. Perform all tests (presen.......

Discussion

Characteristic anxiety behaviors observed in NTT have been positively correlated with serotonin levels analyzed in brains²¹. For example, after exposure to para-chlorophenylalanine (PCPA), an inhibitor of 5-HT biosynthesis, fish exhibited positive geotaxis as well as decreased brain 5-HT levels²², results very similar to those obtained with METH. Therefore, the decrease in brain serotonin levels and the display of positive geotaxis in METH-exposed zebrafish suggests that th.......

Materials

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
Aquarium Cube shape	Blau Aquaristic	7782025	Cubic Panoramic 10  (10 L, 20 cm x 20 cm x 25 cm, 5 mm)
Ethovision software	Noldus	Ethovision XT	Version 12.0 or newer
GigE camera	Imaging Development Systems	UI-5240CP-NIR-GL
GraphPad Prism 9.02	GraphPad software Inc	GraphPad Prism 9.02	For Windows
IDS camera manager	Imaging Development Systems
LED backlight illumination	Quirumed	GP-G2
SPSS Software	IBM	IBM SPSS v26
uEye Cockpit software	Imaging Development Systems	version 4.90