Zebrafish Exploit Visual Cues and Geometric Relationships to Form a Spatial Memory

IScience
Ksenia YashinaHerwig Baier

Abstract

Animals use salient cues to navigate in their environment, but their specific cognitive strategies are largely unknown. We developed a conditioned place avoidance paradigm to discover whether and how zebrafish form spatial memories. In less than an hour, juvenile zebrafish, as young as 3 weeks, learned to avoid the arm of a Y-maze that was cued with a mild electric shock. Interestingly, individual fish solved this task in different ways: by staying in the safe center of the maze or by preference for one, or both, of the safe arms. In experiments in which the learned patterns were swapped, rotated, or replaced, the animals could transfer the association of safety to a different arm or to a different pattern using either visual cues or location as the conditioned stimulus. These findings show that juvenile zebrafish exhibit several complementary spatial learning modes, which generate a flexible repertoire of behavioral strategies.

Citations

Jan 5, 2021·Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience·Alexis Buatois, Robert Gerlai
Aug 28, 2020·Cell Reports·Fabrizio PalumboEmre Yaksi
Feb 27, 2021·Current Biology : CB·Drago A Guggiana NiloFlorian Engert
Apr 30, 2021·STAR Protocols·Fabrizio PalumboEmre Yaksi
Jun 5, 2021·Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews·Radharani BenvenuttiAngelo Piato
Aug 3, 2021·Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience·Laura Corradi, Alessandro Filosa
Mar 18, 2021·Annual Review of Neuroscience·Rainer W Friedrich, Adrian A Wanner
Aug 21, 2021·Current Biology : CB·Ewelina Magdalena BartoszekEmre Yaksi
Aug 28, 2021·Animals : an Open Access Journal From MDPI·Fernando RodríguezCosme Salas

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