Sex differences shape zebrafish performance in a battery of anxiety tests and in response to acute scopolamine treatment.

Bruna E Dos Santos, Ana C V V Giacomini, Leticia Marcon, Konstantin A Demin, Tatyana Strekalova, Murilo S de Abreu, Allan V Kalueff

Neuroscience letters 2021 Aug 10

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Sex differences influence human and animal behavioral and pharmacological responses. The zebrafish (Danio rerio) is a powerful, popular model system in neuroscience and drug screening. However, the impact of zebrafish sex differences on their behavior and drug responses remains poorly understood. Here, we evaluate baseline anxiety-like behavior in adult male and female zebrafish, and its changes following an acute 30-min exposure to 800-μM scopolamine, a common psychoactive anticholinergic drug. Overall, we report high baseline anxiety-like behavior and more individual variability in locomotion in female zebrafish, as well as distinct, sex-specific (anxiolytic-like in females and anxiogenic-like in males) effects of scopolamine. Collectively, these findings reinforce the growing importance of zebrafish models for studying how both individual and sex differences shape behavioral and pharmacological responses. Copyright © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Citation

Bruna E Dos Santos, Ana C V V Giacomini, Leticia Marcon, Konstantin A Demin, Tatyana Strekalova, Murilo S de Abreu, Allan V Kalueff. Sex differences shape zebrafish performance in a battery of anxiety tests and in response to acute scopolamine treatment. Neuroscience letters. 2021 Aug 10;759:135993