• Murilo S de Abreu
  • Ana C. V. V. Giacomini
  • Rafael Genario
  • Bruna E. Dos Santos
  • Leticia Marcon
  • Konstantin A. Demin
  • Allan V. Kalueff

Color of the environment is an important factor modulating human and animal behavior and physiology. Animal models are a valuable tool to understand how colors affect social, cognitive and affective responses. The zebrafish (Danio rerio) is rapidly emerging as an important organism in neuroscience and physiology. Here, we examine whether the color of housing environment influences zebrafish anxiety-like behavior and whole-body cortisol levels. Overall, housing for 15 days in transparent and white holding tanks increases, and in black or blue tanks decreases, baseline anxiety-like behavior in adult zebrafish. Housing in blue tanks (vs. white) also reduced their whole-body cortisol levels. Taken together, our data suggest that color of the housing environment affects neurobehavioral and endocrine responses in zebrafish, with multiple implications for behavioral phenomics and animal welfare. Our study also reinforces zebrafish as a promising model organism to study neurobiology of compex brain-environment interactions.

Original languageEnglish
Article number113499
Pages (from-to)113499
Number of pages5
JournalGeneral and Comparative Endocrinology
Volume294
Early online date29 Apr 2020
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Aug 2020

    Scopus subject areas

  • Endocrinology
  • Animal Science and Zoology

    Research areas

  • Behavior, cortisol, Anxiety, zebrafish, COLOR, Color, Zebrafish, Cortisol, Hydrocortisone/metabolism, Male, Behavior, Animal, Animals, Zebrafish/physiology, Housing, Animal, Anxiety/physiopathology, Female, Models, Animal, DANIO-RERIO, MODEL, PREFERENCES, GENDER, STRESS

ID: 53503102