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Developing Zebrafish Depression-Related Models

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The rights and wrongs of zebrafish: Behavioral phenotyping of zebrafish

Abstract

Animal models of disease are ultimately only as strong as the clinical phenotype(s) upon which they are based. Many obstacles impede our ability to design animal models of complex mental illnesses, such as depression. An animal model that attempts to re-create any disease strives to maximize construct, face, and predictive validities. Strategies to model depression in representative animals have largely focused on one or more symptoms of depression, which have left many knowledge gaps open. In approaching these knowledge gaps, there are three primary areas that we feel need to be focused on: development of translational animal models, identification of genetic determinants, and discovery of novel targets/biomarkers of depression. Here, we discuss how zebrafish may be utilized in the modeling and analysis of the mechanisms of depression. Furthermore, this chapter also provides a detailed description of the behavioral responses and makes recommendations for further development of these methods, and how they may be employed in forward genetic screening for mutations involved in depression-related phenotypes.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Troy University, McCall Hall Troy, AL, 36083, USA

    Julian Pittman

  2. Department of Pharmacology, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil

    Angelo Piato

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  1. Julian Pittman
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  2. Angelo Piato
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Correspondence to Julian Pittman .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. The International Zebrafish Neurosceince Research Consortium (ZNRC) and ZENEREI Research Center, Slidell, Louisiana, USA

    Allan V. Kalueff

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Pittman, J., Piato, A. (2017). Developing Zebrafish Depression-Related Models. In: Kalueff, A. (eds) The rights and wrongs of zebrafish: Behavioral phenotyping of zebrafish. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33774-6_2

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