Stress Coping Style Alters Functional Brain Network Activity to Acute Stressor

Consistent individual differences in behavior (e.g., personality types, stress coping styles) are a common occurrence across animal taxa. One hypothesis poses that the resulting constraints for within-individual behavioral variation may also lead to constraints for the evolution of behavior. With stress coping styles seen across taxa, it suggests a common underlying proximate mechanism. In this study we investigated neural activity patterns across the brain by quantifying immediate early gene expression in individuals with alternative stress coping styles in response to an acute stressor in zebrafish (Danio rerio). While immediate early gene expression levels of individual brain regions in the aversive brain network were similar across groups, functional network activity differed. There were several differences across groups including interactions between the basolateral amygdala and hippocampal homologs. One brain area that had many different connections across groups was the central gray. There were many differences involving central gray activity between proactive and reactive fish at baseline suggesting that baseline activity may prime for the reaction to stress. Collectively, baseline brain activity can predict behaviors, suggesting that these differences in brain interactions at baseline may be important for biasing behavioral responses to stressors that characterizes a stress coping style.