Abstract
Zebrafish (Danio rerio) has been a widely used vertebrate animal model in developmental biology and behavioral neuroscience, but knowledge about some of its basic behaviors, for example, light/dark preference, is still controversial. Appropriate preference for light or dark environments can be crucial for an animal's survival, so we hypothesize that zebrafish may have its light/dark preference varied with the circadian clock. In this present work, we tested the hypothesis by recording the light/dark preference in a two-compartment tank continuously for over 60 h. We found that the light avoidance of fish generally increases with time from morning (8:00am) to midnight (2:00am), and then decreases with time from midnight (2:00am) to morning (8:00am), exhibiting a clear circadian-like trend in the light/dark preference. As melatonin can mediate circadian clock output and promote sleep in zebrafish, by adding extra melatonin at around 9:00am on the third day, the mean proportion of time fish spent in the dark area was increased significantly. Our results demonstrate that the circadian clock plays a significant role in regulating the light/dark preference in zebrafish, which provides valuable insights into understanding the metabolism mechanism underlying the neurobehavior, and facilitate further studies related to the neurobiology of normal and pathological behavior.
Published Version
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