Current Research | Biomimetics

Study of Zebrafish Behaviour Change under Various Environment Conditions

By Laibing Jia, Dr Qing Xiao

Zebrafish has become the most commonly used vertebrate model in biomedical research. In this study, we studied the change of zebrafish behaviour under various environment conditions. The controlled environment conditions include: environment brightness, water temperature, environment light colours, and environment chemicals. We studied the behaviour changes of both larval and adult zebrafish. A high speed camera or webcam was used to capture the locomotion of individual fish swimming in a Petri dish or a water tank separated by a perforated wall. The container was illuminated with different colours to check for zebrafish colour preference. Tracking is carried using a custom made algorithm in MATLAB. With the aid of video tracking, we detected changes in zebrafish behaviour.