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Zebrafish (Danio rerio) as a model for the study of aging and exercise: physical ability and trainability decrease

Matthew J H Gilbert¹, Tanja C Zerulla¹, Keith B Tierney¹

¹Department of Biology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

Experimental Gerontology

|December 10, 2013

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Zebrafish show age-related declines in swimming performance and trainability, similar to humans. Exercise improved performance in younger fish but not older ones, supporting zebrafish as a model for aging and exercise studies.

Area of Science:

Comparative Biology
Gerontology
Exercise Physiology

Background:

Global population aging necessitates robust models for studying senescence.
Zebrafish share internal biological similarities with humans, but whole-organism aging parallels require further investigation.
The impact of exercise on aging in zebrafish remains unexplored.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the effects of aging on zebrafish whole-organism swimming performance and behavior.
To determine the efficacy of intermittent exercise in mitigating age-related declines in zebrafish.
To evaluate zebrafish as a model organism for human aging and exercise research.

Main Methods:

Young, middle-aged, and old zebrafish were subjected to weekly endurance and sprint swimming tests for four weeks.

Keywords:

Aging BL Exercise Swimming behavior Swimming performance TBA TBF U(crit)U(max)Zebrafish f(T)fps frames per second maximum endurance swimming speed maximum sprint swimming speed standard body length tail-beat amplitude tail-beat frequency turning frequency

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Swimming performance, kinematics (tail-beat amplitude), and behavior (turning frequency) were assessed.

Exercise interventions were designed to push fish to exhaustion.

Main Results:

Swimming performance (endurance and sprint) significantly decreased with advancing age.
Exercise training improved swimming performance in young and middle-aged zebrafish, but not in old zebrafish.
Tail-beat amplitude increased with training across all age groups, while turning frequency decreased with age but was unaffected by exercise.

Conclusions:

Zebrafish exhibit age-dependent declines in whole-organism physical performance and exercise trainability.
These findings align with human and mammalian aging phenotypes, validating zebrafish as a suitable model for studying exercise and aging.
The study highlights the differential response to exercise across age groups in zebrafish.