The Brilliance of the Zebrafish Model: Perception on Behavior and Alzheimer’s Disease

Abstract

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) has become increasingly prevalent in the elderly population across the world. It’s pathophysiological markers such as overproduction along with the accumulation of amyloid beta (Aβ) plaques and neurofibrillary tangles (NFT) are posing a serious challenge to novel drug development processes. A model which simulates the human neurodegenerative mechanism will be beneficial for rapid screening of potential drug candidates. Due to the comparable neurological network with humans, zebrafish has emerged as a promising AD model. This model has been thoroughly validated through research in aspects of neuronal pathways analogous to the human brain. The cholinergic, glutamatergic, and GABAergic pathways, which play a role in the manifested behavior of the zebrafish, are well defined. There are several behavioral models in both adult zebrafish and larvae to establish various aspects of cognitive impairment including spatial memory, associative memory, anxiety, and other such features that are manifested in AD. The zebrafish model eliminates the shortcomings of previously recognized mammalian models, in terms of expense, extensive assessment durations, and the complexity of imaging the brain to test the efficacy of therapeutic interventions. This review highlights the various models that analyze the changes in the normal behavioral patterns of the zebrafish when exposed to AD inducing agents. The mechanistic pathway adopted by drugs and novel therapeutic strategies can be explored via these behavioral models and their efficacy to slow the progression of AD can be evaluated.

Zebrafish as a Potential Model for Neurodegenerative Diseases: A Focus on Toxic Metals Implications

“…This model has been extensively validated for research on neuronal pathways analogous to the human brain, such as the cholinergic, glutamatergic, and GABA pathways, which play a role in the manifested behaviour of the zebrafish. The administration of heavy metals can change neurotransmission pathways by targeting various molecular mechanisms [ 85 ].…”

“…However, Thi and his scientific team [ 81 ] did not witness significant changes in shoaling and social interaction tests when zebrafish were exposed to a Pb concentration of 50 ppb for 30 days [ 81 ]. In contrast, Zhao et al [ 117 ] discovered neurobehavioral abnormalities in larval zebrafish, including locomotor and social behaviours, predominantly induced at 20 μg·L −1 Pb concentration [ 85 ]. The Pb exposure experimental settings involved the zebrafish embryos’ (6 hpf) treatment with Pb concentrations of 5, 10, and 20 μg·L −1 for 144 hpf.…”

The Evaluation of Neuroprotective Effect of Nigella sativa Linn Seed Using Zebrafish Model

“…The role of frontal cortical and hippocampal structures in learning and memory cannot be studied with fish since these are not evident, but other attributes of fish make them valuable models in behavioral neuroscience research. Developmental processes can be continuously visualized in species that have a clear egg sack [7]. Zebrafish, in particular, have been well-used in genetics, neuroscience, pharmacology, and toxicology.…”

A robust and flexible deep-learning workflow for animal tracking

“…For many, an aquarium may be a home for fish or a work of art, but for a researcher, an aquarium can serve as a self-contained laboratory. Increasingly, behavioural experiments are using aquarium fish as models to answer diverse questions over a range of fields including neuroscience (Steward et al, 2014;Orger and de Oilavieja, 2017;Roberts et al, 2022), medicine (Shenoy et al, 2022), sensory ecology (Marshall et al, 2018;Newport and Schuster, 2020), cognition (Pouca and Brown, 2017), biomechanics (Liao, 2007), and bio-inspired robotics (Hu et al, 2006). In many cases, the behavioural metrics of interest relate to spatiotemporal patterns of movement measured under different experimental conditions.…”