Paradise fish (Macropodus opercularis) as a complementary translational model for emotional and cognitive function.

ABSTRACT: Zebrafish have revolutionised physiological screening in vertebrates, however, their strong sociality present challenges for interpreting behavioural assays conducted on individual subjects. To retain the advantages of the zebrafish model while addressing its limitations, we propose the use of a solitary species-the paradise fish-as a complementary model system. We compared paradise fish and zebrafish of late larval stage in social and non-social exploratory tasks, anxiety tests and in a working memory assay to assess their performance in these individual-based challenges. We found that in contrast to zebrafish, paradise fish did not show social approach in sociability tests, their exploratory behaviour was unaffected by the presence of a conspecific, and social isolation did not impair th

SUBMITTER: Varga ZK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12307770 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature