UCLA

Prepulse inhibition (PPI) in larval zebrafish can be utilized as a behavioral marker for neural dysfunction. In this study, we show that application of pharmacological agents to affect the Mauthner Cell mediated startle movement in response to acoustic stimuli can be used to quantify dysfunction. By establishing a robust protocol, we were able to confirm the effects of numerous pharmacological agents on PPI. We were also able to establish that haloperidol had a negative effect on PPI. This parallels some recent mammalian PPI studies that indicate that haloperidol has mixed effect on PPI. Dose dependent effects, timing, and even the nature of the reductionist zebrafish model may be responsible for this difference. However, the large sample sizes and simple neural circuitry makes the larval zebrafish and excellent model for high throughput screens of psychotropic therapeutic agents.