Kansas State University Undergraduate Research Conference

Behavioral Paradigms for Studying Neural Circuits of Social Behavior and 
Fear Conditioning in a Zebrafish Model of Autism

Zebrafish is an important genetically tractable vertebrate model system to study the development and function of brain circuits relevant to human affective disorders, like schizophrenia and fear and anxiety disorders. Our group uses zebrafish to study neural circuits and developmental factors underlying autism spectrum disorders. Patients with autisms show compromised social behavior, deficiencies in smell and taste, and elevated anxiety and stress responses. Many of these behavioral abnormalities have been correlated with dysfunctions of the amygdaloid complex, which is the regulatory core of the emotional brain in humans and other vertebrates. To study how mutations of autism genes such as shank3 affect the emotional brain and specifically the amygdala, we plan to perform behavioral experiments with a zebrafish shank3 mutant model of autism in comparison to normal (wild type) fish. Here, we present our research strategy and two behavioral experimental designs (paradigms) that will allow us to analyze the social and anxiety behavior of adult wild type zebrafish versus the shank3-mutant model of autism. Specifically, we are currently implementing a Zantiks behavioral chamber to apply mild electroshocks to the Zebrafish in conjunction with light stimulus for fear conditioning. In addition, we are setting up a social (shoaling) behavioral paradigm that allow to track the movement and behavior of single fish in a group of fishes. The establishment of these behavioral paradigms will greatly help in studying the neural circuits underlying autism spectrum disorders.