Alarm Test: A Novel Chemical-Free Behavioural Assessment Tool for Zebrafish

Abstract

Zebrafish (ZF) is an incredible animal for the study of neurological disorders. Its behaviour is like higher vertebrate animals, which makes it gainful and robust. Understanding the psychological and biological implications of housing settings for ZFs is very crucial in improving the replicability and dependability of ZF behavioural research. Individual housing triggers depression-like symptoms that suggest that housing conditions have negative effects on ZF and can result in the data discrepancy. Based on various behavioural analyses, we have evaluated that the ZFs kept in isolation and the ZFs kept in herd conditions exhibit different behavioural patterns. Interestingly, normal isolated subjects exhibit similar behavioural patterns as Alzheimer disease (AD)-induced subjects; hence, this can have serious implications on any study concerning behaviour of ZFs. Therefore, we have reported a new behavioural test named “Alarm Test”, which effectively discriminates normal isolated subjects from AD subjects. Alarm Test is observed to be better than other tests used for studying fear and anxiety in ZFs as it uses the indigenous compound released by ZFs during fear and makes use of the same for analysis. This can reduce the involvement of chemicals during behavioural analysis as well as sacrifice of ZFs for collection of alarm substance.