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The importance of individual variation for the interpretation of behavioural studies: ethanol effects vary with basal activity level in zebrafish larvae

Standardization and reduction of variation is key to behavioural screening of animal models in toxicological and pharmacological studies. However, individual variation in behavioural and physiological phenotypes remains in each laboratory population and can undermine the understanding of toxicologic...

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Autores principales: Davis, Raissa, Luchtenburg, Floris, Richardson, Michael, Schaaf, Marcel, Tudorache, Christian, Slabbekoorn, Hans
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8605963/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34510233
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00213-021-05932-6
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author Davis, Raissa
Luchtenburg, Floris
Richardson, Michael
Schaaf, Marcel
Tudorache, Christian
Slabbekoorn, Hans
author_facet Davis, Raissa
Luchtenburg, Floris
Richardson, Michael
Schaaf, Marcel
Tudorache, Christian
Slabbekoorn, Hans
author_sort Davis, Raissa
collection PubMed
description Standardization and reduction of variation is key to behavioural screening of animal models in toxicological and pharmacological studies. However, individual variation in behavioural and physiological phenotypes remains in each laboratory population and can undermine the understanding of toxicological and pharmaceutical effects and their underlying mechanisms. Here, we used zebrafish (ABTL-strain) larvae to explore individual consistency in activity level and emergence time, across subsequent days of early development (6–8 dpf). We also explored the correlation between these two behavioural parameters. We found inter-individual consistency over time in activity level and emergence time, but we did not find a consistent correlation between these parameters. Subsequently, we investigated the impact of variation in activity level on the effect of a 1% ethanol treatment, suitable for our proof-of-concept case study about whether impact from pharmacological treatments might be affected by inter-individual variation in basal locomotion. The inter-individual consistency over time in activity level did not persist in this test. This was due to the velocity change from before to after exposure, which turned out to be a dynamic individual trait related to basal activity level: low-activity individuals raised their swimming velocity, while high-activity individuals slowed down, yielding diametrically opposite response patterns to ethanol exposure. We therefore argue that inter-individual consistency in basal activity level, already from 6 dpf, is an important factor to take into account and provides a practical measure to improve the power of statistical analyses and the scope for data interpretation from behavioural screening studies.
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spelling pubmed-86059632021-12-03 The importance of individual variation for the interpretation of behavioural studies: ethanol effects vary with basal activity level in zebrafish larvae Davis, Raissa Luchtenburg, Floris Richardson, Michael Schaaf, Marcel Tudorache, Christian Slabbekoorn, Hans Psychopharmacology (Berl) Original Investigation Standardization and reduction of variation is key to behavioural screening of animal models in toxicological and pharmacological studies. However, individual variation in behavioural and physiological phenotypes remains in each laboratory population and can undermine the understanding of toxicological and pharmaceutical effects and their underlying mechanisms. Here, we used zebrafish (ABTL-strain) larvae to explore individual consistency in activity level and emergence time, across subsequent days of early development (6–8 dpf). We also explored the correlation between these two behavioural parameters. We found inter-individual consistency over time in activity level and emergence time, but we did not find a consistent correlation between these parameters. Subsequently, we investigated the impact of variation in activity level on the effect of a 1% ethanol treatment, suitable for our proof-of-concept case study about whether impact from pharmacological treatments might be affected by inter-individual variation in basal locomotion. The inter-individual consistency over time in activity level did not persist in this test. This was due to the velocity change from before to after exposure, which turned out to be a dynamic individual trait related to basal activity level: low-activity individuals raised their swimming velocity, while high-activity individuals slowed down, yielding diametrically opposite response patterns to ethanol exposure. We therefore argue that inter-individual consistency in basal activity level, already from 6 dpf, is an important factor to take into account and provides a practical measure to improve the power of statistical analyses and the scope for data interpretation from behavioural screening studies. Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2021-09-11 2021 /pmc/articles/PMC8605963/ /pubmed/34510233 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00213-021-05932-6 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Original Investigation
Davis, Raissa
Luchtenburg, Floris
Richardson, Michael
Schaaf, Marcel
Tudorache, Christian
Slabbekoorn, Hans
The importance of individual variation for the interpretation of behavioural studies: ethanol effects vary with basal activity level in zebrafish larvae
title The importance of individual variation for the interpretation of behavioural studies: ethanol effects vary with basal activity level in zebrafish larvae
title_full The importance of individual variation for the interpretation of behavioural studies: ethanol effects vary with basal activity level in zebrafish larvae
title_fullStr The importance of individual variation for the interpretation of behavioural studies: ethanol effects vary with basal activity level in zebrafish larvae
title_full_unstemmed The importance of individual variation for the interpretation of behavioural studies: ethanol effects vary with basal activity level in zebrafish larvae
title_short The importance of individual variation for the interpretation of behavioural studies: ethanol effects vary with basal activity level in zebrafish larvae
title_sort importance of individual variation for the interpretation of behavioural studies: ethanol effects vary with basal activity level in zebrafish larvae
topic Original Investigation
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8605963/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34510233
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00213-021-05932-6
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