RRC ID 83838
Author Islam T, Torigoe M, Tanimoto Y, Okamoto H.
Title Adult zebrafish can learn Morris water maze-like tasks in a two-dimensional virtual reality system.
Journal Cell Rep Methods
Abstract Virtual reality (VR) has emerged as a powerful tool for investigating neural mechanisms of decision-making, spatial cognition, and navigation. In many head-fixed VRs for rodents, animals locomote on spherical treadmills that provide rotation information in two axes to calculate two-dimensional (2D) movement. On the other hand, zebrafish in a submerged head-fixed VR can move their tail to enable movement in 2D VR environment. This motivated us to create a VR system for adult zebrafish to enable 2D movement consisting of forward translation and rotations calculated from tail movement. Besides presenting the VR system, we show that zebrafish can learn a virtual Morris water maze-like (VMWM) task in which finding an invisible safe zone was necessary for the zebrafish to avoid an aversive periodic mild electric shock. Results show high potential for our VR system to be combined with optical imaging for future studies to investigate spatial learning and navigation.
Volume 4(10)
Pages 100863
Published 2024-10-21
DOI 10.1016/j.crmeth.2024.100863
PII S2667-2375(24)00241-8
PMID 39317191
PMC PMC11573742
MeSH Animals Maze Learning / physiology Morris Water Maze Test Spatial Navigation / physiology Virtual Reality* Zebrafish* / physiology
Resource
Zebrafish RIKEN WT (RW)