Welfare of Zebrafish undergoing procedures

A recent paper published by authors including Lynne Sneddon from the University of Liverpool, examined the impact of social context on behavior and recovery from welfare challenges of zebrafish.  They housed zebrafish in pairs or group and compared their responses to one of three treatments (undisturbed; anaesthetized and handled or anaesthetized and fin clipped) using behavioural and physiological measures. Their results indicated that group-housed fish resumed normal behaviours more quickly than pairs or individuals, suggesting that group housing may enhance recovery from procedures. In addition, during the study they compared the non-invasive measure of cortisol using water-borne analyses with the invasive whole-body measure and found that there was a strong correlation between the two. The use of water-borne cortisol to measure physiological stress in zebrafish represents an important refinement for future studies.

 

This study was funded by NC3R's and further information including a link to the paper can be found here.