Zebrafish research today: Tremendous promise to be unlocked with behavioral studies

In medical research, and drug discovery in particular, the zebrafish (Danio Rerio) has demonstrated its extraordinary potential to accelerate research timelines while reducing costs. Medical research using the model increasingly relies on the impressive behavior repertoire exhibited by the transparent larvae, but this requires specialized, expensive equipment coming with many constraints that limit experiments. These limitations include:

• Segregating individual fish in very tight enclosures prevents full repertoire of behavior
• Using transmitted light produces pixel data with no inherent information about subjects
• Taking noisy measurements because of the reliance on transmitted light
• Generating enormous data volumes preventing long term recording