13 May 2019
Barbara Fontana et al’s new paper on Behavioral laterality was presented this weekend at the 48th IBANGS conference in Edinburgh, Genes, Brains and Behavior.
The experiments were conducted in Matt Parker’s lab, at the University of Porstmouth, where adult zebrafish were tested in Zantiks AD units for left-right bias in a novel unconditioned Y-maze protocol. Using the results they then explored any relationship of biasedness on the performance of different behavioral domains, including learning about threat-cues in the fear condition test and locomotion and anxiety-related behavior in the novel tank diving test. They found that although laterality did not change locomotion or anxiety-related behaviors, biased animals showed increased learning associated to fear cues. The paper is available on bioRxiv.
Find out how to set up the Y-maze with zebrafish, Drosophila and mice in this online protocol which includes a video interview with Matt Parker. You can also see how to test adult zebrafish in the Zantiks AD unit for behavioural laterality in this online tutorial.
