Cued Fear Conditioning in Zebrafish (Danio rerio)

Abstract

This protocol describes the cued fear conditioning task, designed to test the acquisition of the association between a fearful stimulus (unconditioned stimulus, US) and a cue (conditioned stimulus, CS) in zebrafish (Danio rerio). Here we use electrical shock as a US, and red light as a CS, both of which are easily manipulated and can be applied to fish swimming in the water, under the control of the strength, timing, and duration of the stimuli. While fish can display different forms of fear responses (e.g., freezing behavior and flight behavior), this protocol allows the researchers to analyze both freezing and flight behaviors in a quantitative manner, by using a video-/software-based analyses.