Grant: Research Tools and Instruments

A multidisciplinary team of researchers with expertise in studying development, reproductive and metabolic physiology, and behaviour in zebrafish will assemble a behavioural unit dedicated to high resolution analysis of movement. The zebrafish is quickly becoming an invaluable animal model for the study of physiological, ecological, and biomedical phenomena. Overt and minute changes in behaviour of zebrafish can be used as a readout to determine the effects on the organism of such things as gene mutations, changes in hormones, or chemical exposure. However, behavioural studies in any animal model can be confounded by environmental variables or by stress. To avoid these confounding factors, the “Unit” will be comprised of two platforms located in a dedicated and isolated space. The first platform is comprised of aquatics housing with superior light control so that animals can be isolated from the main colony and pre-adapted to appropriate conditions for the study of complex behaviours without stress or disturbance. A second platform will allow simultaneous recording and analysis by high resolution, long duration video cameras. There is no other unit or equipment with similar capabilities available at the University or elsewhere in Ottawa. The proposed system will dramatically increase research output and eliminate confounding effects of stress and environment in our studies. The behavioural unit will provide researchers with unprecedented details on the genes that control the interactions of females and males during reproductive events and for the development of the nervous system and its consequence on brain function and motor behaviour. Our HQP will be provided with an invaluable opportunity for the cutting-edge training needed for fields such as animal development and physiology, neurobiology and toxicology, as well as bioinformatics, machine learning and complex behavioural data analysis. They will be highly sought after by academia, industry, or government research departments as research using zebrafish and behavioural studies become more significant for biomedical models of disease, pharmaceutical screening, and toxicology.