Effect of chronic stress on the brain and behavior of the zebrafish.

We will use a population of juvenile zebrafish to investigate the neural circuits affected by chronic stress. Juvenile fish will be exposed to mild environmental stressors for several days, and selected after a behavioural anxiety measurement for high or low stress resilience over several generations. The neurophysiological stress responses of the fish will be measured using a combination of in vivo calcium imaging, neural ablation, ex vivo immediate-early gene mapping and whole body cortisol. We will use 10 000 zebrafish over 3 years for that research. None of our experiments involves chronic or acute pain or invasive surgery and all experiments are non-invasive. As such, we expect minimal distress for the animal.