Pavla Hubená1,2  · Lisa Benrejdal3  · David Brodin4  · Johanna Axling1  · Oly Sen Sarma1  · Peter Bergman3,5  · Svante Winberg1,6

1 Department of Medical Cell Biology, Behavioural Neuroendocrinology, Uppsala University, 751 23 Uppsala, Sweden 

2 Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Gothenburg, 405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden 

3 Department of Laboratory Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, 141 52 Huddinge, Sweden 

4 Bioinformatics and Expression Analysis Core Facility, Department of Medicine Huddinge, Karolinska Institutet, 141 52 Huddinge, Sweden 

5 Clinical Immunology and Transfusion Medicine, Karolinska University Hospital, 141 57 Huddinge, Sweden 

6 Department of Animal Biosciences, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, 750 07 Uppsala, Sweden

Abstract

Individuals with divergent personality traits corresponding to stress coping styles have been suggested to differ in behavioural and neural plasticity. We used a model of social defeat stress to assess the coping ability of wild zebrafish selectively bred for boldness/shyness. Behavioural tests were applied to assess parameters such as boldness/exploration, aggressiveness, and displacement behaviour. Gene expression changes in the brain were assessed via RNA sequencing. The main results show a strong effect of shyness and boldness phenotype on behaviour and the brain transcriptome. Fish of the shy line displayed significant behavioural differences, while the number of differentially-expressed genes remained low. In contrast, fish of the bold line exhibited a small effect on behaviour and pronounced changes in brain gene expression. This study highlights the importance of boldness phenotype and its influence on the response to social challenges at the behavioural and transcriptomic levels.

Keywords

Behavioural flexibility; Plasticity; Winning; Losing; Proactive · Reactive

[SpringerLink]