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Heritable natural variation of light/dark preference in an outbred zebrafish population.

ABSTRACT: Anxiety is a fear-like response to stimuli perceived to be threatening. Excessive or uncontrollable anxiety is a debilitating psychiatric disorder which affects many people throughout their lifetime. In unravelling the complex genetic and environmental regulations of anxiety-like phenotypes, models measuring the natural dark avoidance of larval zebrafish have shed light on the individual variation and heritability of this anxiety-related trait. Using the light/dark choice paradigm and selective breeding, this study aims to validate previous findings of the variable (VDA) and strong dark aversion (SDA) heritability in AB-WT larval zebrafish using the outbred zebrafish strain EK, which offers more genetic diversity to aid in future molecular mapping efforts. 190 larvae (6?days post fertilization [dpf] and 7 dpf) were tested across four trials and divided into variable (VDA), medium (MDA) and strong (SDA) dark aversion for further in-crosses. VDA and MDA larvae became more explorative with time, whereas SDA larvae rarely left the preferred light zone. The SDA and VDA in-crosses significantly increased the respective phenotypes in the second generation of larvae, whereas VDA?×?MDA inter-crosses did not. For the second-generation SDA cohort, dark aversion correlated with increased thigmotaxis, which reinforces SDA as an anxiety-like phenotype. Our finding that the dark aversion trait and SDA and VDA phenotypes are heritable in an outbred zebrafish population lays an important foundation for future studies of genetic underpinnings using whole-genome mapping methods. This conserved fear/anxiety-like response in a highly accessible model organism also allows for further pharmacological and behavioral studies to elucidate the etiology of anxiety and the search for novel therapeutics for anxiety disorders.

SUBMITTER: Dahlen A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6919307 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Heritable natural variation of light/dark preference in an outbred zebrafish population.

Dahlén Amelia A Wagle Mahendra M Zarei Mahdi M Guo Su S

Journal of neurogenetics 20190922 4

Anxiety is a fear-like response to stimuli perceived to be threatening. Excessive or uncontrollable anxiety is a debilitating psychiatric disorder which affects many people throughout their lifetime. In unravelling the complex genetic and environmental regulations of anxiety-like phenotypes, models measuring the natural dark avoidance of larval zebrafish have shed light on the individual variation and heritability of this anxiety-related trait. Using the light/dark choice paradigm and selective ...[more]

PMID: 31544554

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Project description:Background. Research addressing distinctions and similarities between people's malevolent character traits (i.e., the Dark Triad: Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy) has detected inconsistent linear associations to temperament traits. Additionally, these dark traits seem to have a common core expressed as uncooperativeness. Hence, some researchers suggest that the dark traits are best represented as one global construct (i.e., the unification argument) rather than as ternary construct (i.e., the uniqueness argument). We put forward the dark cube (cf. Cloninger's character cube) comprising eight dark profiles that can be used to compare individuals who differ in one dark character trait while holding the other two constant. Our aim was to investigate in which circumstances individuals who are high in each one of the dark character traits differ in Cloninger's "light" character traits: self-directedness, cooperativeness, and self-transcendence. We also investigated if people's dark character profiles were associated to their light character profiles. Method. A total of 997 participants recruited from Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk) responded to the Short Dark Triad and the Short Character Inventory. Participants were allocated to eight different dark profiles and eight light profiles based on their scores in each of the traits and any possible combination of high and low scores. We used three-way interaction regression analyses and t-tests to investigate differences in light character traits between individuals with different dark profiles. As a second step, we compared the individuals' dark profile with her/his character profile using an exact cell-wise analysis conducted in the ROPstat software (http://www.ropstat.com). Results. Individuals who expressed high levels of Machiavellianism and those who expressed high levels of psychopathy also expressed low self-directedness and low cooperativeness. Individuals with high levels of narcissism, in contrast, scored high in self-directedness. Moreover, individuals with a profile low in the dark traits were more likely to end up with a profile high in cooperativeness. The opposite was true for those individuals with a profile high in the dark traits. The rest of the cross-comparisons revealed some of the characteristics of human personality as a non-linear complex dynamic system. Conclusions. Our study suggests that individuals who are high in Machiavellianism and psychopathy share a unified non-agentic and uncooperative character (i.e., irresponsible, low in self-control, unempathetic, unhelpful, untolerant), while individuals high in narcissism have a more unique character configuration expressed as high agency and, when the other dark traits are high, highly spiritual but uncooperative. In other words, based on differences in their associations to the light side of character, the Dark Triad seems to be a dyad rather than a triad.

Dataset Information

Heritable natural variation of light/dark preference in an outbred zebrafish population.

Publications

Heritable natural variation of light/dark preference in an outbred zebrafish population.

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