St Andrews Research Repository

St Andrews University Home
View Item 
  •   St Andrews Research Repository
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • View Item
  •   St Andrews Research Repository
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • View Item
  •   St Andrews Research Repository
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • View Item
  • Login
JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

Food or friends? What motivates zebrafish (Danio rerio) performing a visual discrimination

Thumbnail
View/Open
BBR_2018_1254_Revision_1_V0.pdf (504.8Kb)
Date
01/02/2019
Author
Daggett, Jenny
Brown, Verity J.
Brennan, Caroline
Keywords
Anticipation
Fish
2-AFC
Discrimination learning
Attention
Expectation
RC0321 Neuroscience. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry
QH301 Biology
Neuroscience(all)
Psychology(all)
NDAS
Metadata
Show full item record
Altmetrics Handle Statistics
Altmetrics DOI Statistics
Abstract
As a model organism, zebrafish have much to offer neuroscientific research and they are increasingly being used in behavioral neuroscience, for example to study the genetics of learning and memory. As fish are often considered “less clever” than mammals, it is important to understand how they learn and to establish optimal testing conditions. In this study, we compared the efficacy of food reinforcement and social stimuli in supporting Pavlovian conditioning, Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer, and acquisition of a two-alternative forced choice visual discrimination. Although equally effective in conditioning and in motivating discrimination learning, fish responded with shorter latencies when they were anticipating food but responded for a greater number of trials when anticipating the social stimulus. After learning, the reward was changed: food-reinforcement was replaced with the social stimulus and vice versa. Performance accuracy did not change, but response latency did: the group previously rewarded with food, but now rewarded with the social stimulus, showed a decrease in response vigor. This is a negative contrast effect, which is well established in rats, but was thought to be absent in fish because they lacked goal representation. Our results show that zebrafish, like rats, do have goal representations. Furthermore, we have shown that whereas food has greater incentive salience than social stimuli, fish become satiated rapidly, but motivation to seek social stimuli is sustained. We conclude that zebrafish are well motivated by a mixed economy of social stimuli and food.
Citation
Daggett , J , Brown , V J & Brennan , C 2019 , ' Food or friends? What motivates zebrafish ( Danio rerio ) performing a visual discrimination ' , Behavioural Brain Research , vol. 359 , pp. 190-196 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2018.11.002
Publication
Behavioural Brain Research
Status
Peer reviewed
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2018.11.002
ISSN
0166-4328
Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. This work has been made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the author created accepted version manuscript following peer review and as such may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2018.11.002
Description
This work was supported in part by the University of St Andrews’ QR block grant and the following grants awarded to CHB: NC3Rs G1000053; BBSRC BB/M007863; Leverhulme RPG-2016-143. CHB and VJB are Members of the Royal Society Industry Fellows’ College.
Collections
  • University of St Andrews Research
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/18856

Items in the St Andrews Research Repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.

Advanced Search

Browse

All of RepositoryCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateNamesTitlesSubjectsClassificationTypeFunderThis CollectionBy Issue DateNamesTitlesSubjectsClassificationTypeFunder

My Account

Login

Open Access

To find out how you can benefit from open access to research, see our library web pages and Open Access blog. For open access help contact: openaccess@st-andrews.ac.uk.

Accessibility

Read our Accessibility statement.

How to submit research papers

The full text of research papers can be submitted to the repository via Pure, the University's research information system. For help see our guide: How to deposit in Pure.

Electronic thesis deposit

Help with deposit.

Repository help

For repository help contact: Digital-Repository@st-andrews.ac.uk.

Give Feedback

Cookie policy

This site may use cookies. Please see Terms and Conditions.

Usage statistics

COUNTER-compliant statistics on downloads from the repository are available from the IRUS-UK Service. Contact us for information.

© University of St Andrews Library

University of St Andrews is a charity registered in Scotland, No SC013532.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter