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Updated: Jan 27, 2026

Dissection and Flat-mounting of the Threespine Stickleback Branchial Skeleton
Published on: May 7, 2016
The three-spined stickleback as a model for behavioural neuroscience
William H J Norton1, Héctor Carreño Gutiérrez1
1Department of Neuroscience, Psychology and Behaviour, College of Life Sciences, University of Leicester, Leicester, United Kingdom.
None:
The three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) is a small teleost fish that is ubiquitous across the Northern Hemisphere. Among the behaviours that have been characterised in this species is ritualized courtship, aggressiveness and parental behaviour. Whereas three-spined sticklebacks have been used for ecological, evolutionary, parasitological and toxicological research, its complex behavioural repertoire and experimental advantages have not been exploited for basic neuroscience research. The aim of the present study is to describe some innate behaviours of laboratory bred three-spined sticklebacks by using a battery of tests that have been developed and validated to model some aspects of human psychiatric disorders in zebrafish. We recorded mirror induced aggression, novel object boldness, shoaling, and anxiety-like behaviour using both the novel tank diving and the black-white preference tests. We show that behaviour of three-spined sticklebacks in these standard tests is remarkably similar to that of zebrafish and other species and can be altered by fluoxetine and buspirone. These findings highlight the potential of using three-spined sticklebacks for cross-species and translational studies.
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