RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Involvement of Cerebellar Neural Circuits in Active Avoidance Conditioning in Zebrafish
JF eneuro
JO eNeuro
FD Society for Neuroscience
SP ENEURO.0507-20.2021
DO 10.1523/ENEURO.0507-20.2021
VO 8
IS 3
A1 Wataru Koyama
A1 Ryo Hosomi
A1 Koji Matsuda
A1 Koichi Kawakami
A1 Masahiko Hibi
A1 Takashi Shimizu
YR 2021
UL http://www.eneuro.org/content/8/3/ENEURO.0507-20.2021.abstract
AB When animals repeatedly receive a combination of neutral conditional stimulus (CS) and aversive unconditional stimulus (US), they learn the relationship between CS and US, and show conditioned fear responses after CS. They show passive responses such as freezing or panic movements (classical or Pavlovian fear conditioning), or active behavioral responses to avoid aversive stimuli (active avoidance). Previous studies suggested the roles of the cerebellum in classical fear conditioning but it remains elusive whether the cerebellum is involved in active avoidance conditioning. In this study, we analyzed the roles of cerebellar neural circuits during active avoidance in adult zebrafish. When pairs of CS (light) and US (electric shock) were administered to wild-type zebrafish, about half of them displayed active avoidance. The expression of botulinum toxin, which inhibits the release of neurotransmitters, in cerebellar granule cells (GCs) or Purkinje cells (PCs) did not affect conditioning-independent swimming behaviors, but did inhibit active avoidance conditioning. Nitroreductase (NTR)-mediated ablation of PCs in adult zebrafish also impaired active avoidance. Furthermore, the inhibited transmission of GCs or PCs resulted in reduced fear-conditioned Pavlovian fear responses. Our findings suggest that the zebrafish cerebellum plays an active role in active avoidance conditioning.