Terrestrial jumping assay for adult zebrafish as a potential tool to assess motor, affective and drug-evoked phenotypes

Terrestrial jumping is a typical evolutionarily conserved 'survival' fish behavior. Zebrafish (Danio rerio) are widely used as a model organism in CNS research and drug discovery. Here, we explore the potential utility of the terrestrial jumping assay to characterize behavioral effects of a wide range of pharmacological and other experimental manipulations in adult zebrafish. For this, zebrafish were individually placed in a large glass tank and their jumping behavioral profile was assessed for 60 s by video-recording and subsequent off-line analyses of escape-like jumps and immobility episodes in a slow mode. Treatment groups including acute exposure to ethanol, arecoline, caffeine, alarm pheromone and live predator (Nandus nandus), as well as chronic exposure to neuroactive drugs fluoxetine, reserpine, cuprizone and rotenone. Overall, the assay shows high sensitivity to various experimental manipulations, supporting the utility of the terrestrial jumping assay as a fast, low-cost and single-trial behavioral paradigm to assess both motor phenotypes and affective-like responses in zebrafish.