Presenter(s): Adeline Fecker − Biology
Faculty Mentor(s): Sarah Stednitz
Poster 43
Research Area: Natural Sciences
The zebrafish animal model provides valuable insight into social behavior and social impairments. Zebrafish exhibit a stereotyped orienting pattern called shulling when they interact with another fish. Our goal is to identify the neurons involved in this social behavior. We control the shulling behavior by placing one fish on each side of a clear divider. This assay allows
us to track their shulling pattern and control the duration of the interaction. After running a social behavior test in zebrafish, the brain is immediately dissected, cleared and stained for activity. This procedure labels the neurons that were recently active during the social behavior condition. Activity was labeled on three channels: GFP, ERK, and phospho ERK. We used zebrafish bred with the GFP transgene and stained the dissected brains with ERK and phospho ERK antibodies. The brains of fish who received no social stimulation were also dissected and stained as a control. The lateral septum of the forebrain is highly active in the stimulated condition. In a follow-up experiment, ablations of the lateral septum revealed social deficits in the behavior tests. This suggests the lateral septum is important for social behavior. Similar research on mammalian models supports the importance of the forebrain in social behavior. Our finding not only strengthens the validity of the fish model but also has implications for the localization of social deficits in autism and schizophrenia.