Ryu, S and De Marco, RJ (2017) Performance on innate behaviour during early development as a function of stress level. Scientific Reports, 7. ISSN 2045-2322

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Abstract

What is the relationship between the level of acute stress and performance on innate behaviour? The diversity of innate behaviours and lack of sufficient data gathered under the same experimental conditions leave this question unresolved. While evidence points to an inverted-U shaped relationship between the level of acute stress and various measures of learning and memory function, it is unknown the extent to which such a non-linear function applies to performance on innate behaviour, which develops without example or practice under natural circumstances. The fundamental prediction of this view is that moderate stress levels will improve performance, while higher levels will not. Testing this proposition has been difficult because it entails an overall effect that must be invariant to the nature of the stressor, the behaviour under scrutiny and the stimulus that drives it. Here, we report new experimental results showing that developing zebrafish (Danio rerio) under moderate but not higher levels of stress improved their performance on instinctive activities driven by visual, hydrodynamic and thermal inputs. Our findings reveal, for the first time, the existence of an inverted-U shaped performance function according to stress level during early development in a series of innate behaviours.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	0601 Biochemistry and Cell Biology, 0299 Other Physical Sciences
Subjects:	R Medicine > RC Internal medicine > RC0321 Neuroscience. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry
Divisions:	Biological & Environmental Sciences (from Sep 19)
Publisher:	Nature Publishing Group
Date Deposited:	26 Feb 2020 11:45
Last Modified:	04 Sep 2021 07:50
DOI or ID number:	10.1038/s41598-017-08400-4
URI:	https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/12322

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