Abstract
The effects of wall color stimuli on diving, and the effects of depth stimuli on scototaxis, were assessed in zebrafish. Three groups of fish were confined to a black, a white, or a transparent tank, and tested for depth preference. Two groups of fish were confined to a deep or a shallow tank, and tested for black-white preference. As predicted, fish preferred the deep half of a split-tank over the shallow half, and preferred the black half of a black/white tank over the white half. Results indicated that the tank wall color significantly affected depth preference, with the transparent tank producing the strongest depth preference and the black tank producing the weakest preference. Tank depth, however, did not significantly affect color preference. Additionally, wall color significantly affected shuttling and immobility, while depth significantly affected shuttling and thigmotaxis. These results are consistent with previous indications that the diving response and scototaxis may reflect dissociable mechanisms of behavior. We conclude that the two tests are complementary rather than interchangeable, and that further research on the motivational systems underlying behavior in each of the two tests is needed.
Highlights
As the study of zebrafish behavior gains popularity, simple tests have emerged as potentially useful behavioral measures of anxiety
The black/white preference test exploits another natural tendency of zebrafish, the preference for a black chamber over a white chamber in an experimental tank, which has been suggested to serve a cryptic function [4,5]
Repeated-measures Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) yielded a significant effect of Color (F(2, 30) = 7.56, p = 0.002), with post-hoc analysis indicating that animals in the black condition spent significantly more time in the shallow side of the tank than those in the transparent condition (p,0.05)
Summary
As the study of zebrafish behavior gains popularity, simple tests have emerged as potentially useful behavioral measures of anxiety. The black/white preference test exploits another natural tendency of zebrafish, the preference for a black chamber over a white chamber in an experimental tank, which has been suggested to serve a cryptic function [4,5]. Both tests have been used to measure ‘anxiety’ in zebrafish [4,6,7,8,9], the validity of these measures is still under investigation. In order to effectively use these measures to screen for drugs or phenotypes that may affect motivation and behavior, it would be useful to know whether the two tests can be used interchangeably to measure the construct of ‘anxiety’ (chosen as a matter of convenience), or whether they measure dissociable mechanisms of behavior, and if so, how they differ [10]
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