虚拟视觉刺激引起幼年斑马鱼捕食行为放弃的研究

目的 当动物重复某种行为以逃避危险或获取奖励而无法成功时,会产生放弃。放弃是一种常见且基本的行为,在小鼠等模式动物中已经被广泛研究,但是其部分神经机制仍未被阐明。幼年斑马鱼适合进行全脑光学成像,是神经科学领域的重要模式生物。已经有研究者通过持续电击等消极刺激诱发斑马鱼放弃行为,然而奖励刺激能否引起斑马鱼放弃尚无报道。本文对奖励刺激引起的斑马鱼放弃行为进行了探究。方法 通过给予斑马鱼虚拟的食物视觉刺激,检验斑马鱼对虚拟食物的捕食情况,比较斑马鱼捕食频率和单次捕食时长随时间的变化。结果 虚拟的食物视觉刺激可以引起斑马鱼的捕食行为,接受25 min虚拟刺激后,8日龄以上斑马鱼的捕食频率和单次捕食时长均出现显著下降。结论 此研究丰富了斑马鱼放弃行为的研究范式,实验结果表明,缺失真实奖励的虚拟食物刺激可以诱导斑马鱼放弃捕食行为,这将进一步加深对动物放弃行为的理解,推动对其神经机制的研究。

Giving up Prey Capture Behavior in Zebrafish Larvae Induced by Virtual Visual Stimuli

Objective Giving up arises when an animal repeats a behavior to avoid danger or to obtain reward without success. It is a common and fundamental behavior that has been extensively studied in model animals such as mice, but the underlying neural mechanisms have not yet been well elucidated. Zebrafish larvae are important model organisms in neuroscience due to their suitability for whole brain imaging. Negative stimuli such as continuous electric shock have been used to induce giving up behavior in zebrafish, however, whether reward stimuli can induce giving up in zebrafish has not been reported.Methods By presenting larval zebrafish visual stimuli of paramecium, the hunting behavior of zebrafish on virtual food was examined, and the changes of the zebrafish predation frequency and predation duration over time were compared.Results Virtual visual stimulation of food can induce the predatory behavior of zebrafish. After receiving virtual stimuli for 25 min, the predation frequency and single predation duration of over 8 days post fertilization (dpf) zebrafish decreased significantly.Conclusion Our study enriches the paradigm of zebrafish give up behavior. The experimental results show that virtual food stimuli lacking real rewards can induce zebrafish to abandon predation. The current behavioral paradigm provides a new method to study animal give up behavior and the underlying neural mechanisms.