ZEBRAFISH AS A MODEL FOR ADDICTIVE BEHAVIORS

KEDIKIAN, X. AND BERNABEU R

Huerta Grande, Cordoba

Congreso; IIRCN; 2010

Sociedad Argentina de Neurociencias

Rats and mice were extensively used to study the addictive properties of drugs of abuse. In recent years, zebrafish (Danio rerio) was increasingly utilized in neurobehavioral research, because it has proved to be a reliable vertebrate model system and is an excellent model for use in forward genetics. Extensive research has shown that there are genetic, neural, and endocrine homologies between zebrafish and mammals. Nicotine is the principal psychoactive component present in tobacco and is responsible for the reinforcing properties that lead to dependence, addiction and high incidence of relapse. Addiction studies in rodents are done using two experimental models: the conditioned place preference (CPP), and drug self-administration. Using a CPP paradigm, and knowing that zebrafish has a natural preference for dark environments, we setup a biased procedure to evaluate nicotine-induced behaviors. After conditioning, treated fishes showed a significant increase in the time spent in the drug-paired side. This results show that adult zebrafish is a good model to study the rewarding properties of nicotine and support the possible use of zebrafish as a model to understand the genetic and molecular mechanisms underlying addictive behaviors.