PROGRESS ON NEUROBEHAVIORAL TOXICITY IN FISHES

Neurobehavioral toxicity is one of important research fields in neuroscience, neuropharmacology and neurotoxicology, which of growing importance for understanding the mechanisms of chemicals on nervous system and for evaluating the quality of ecosystem. Possessing well-developed central nervous system, fish is extremely sensitive to chemicals in the water environment, and the nervous system can produce a comprehensive and coordinated response to various stimuli, which resulted in complex, well-characterized behaviors, including its swimming behaviors and social behaviors. And fish behavior is now recognized as a complex, homologous to mammals, context specific, adaptive and highly variable. A variety of behavioral tests have been developed to assess motor function, stress response, social behavior and learning/memory in fish. And behavior of fish can be measured to determine the functional impact of chemicals. The elementary actions of a neurotoxicant can be followed in terms of disruptions of neural differentiation, proliferation, migration, outgrowth, synapse formation, and circuit development. Fish has been widely used as a tool to detect toxins in water samples and to investigate the mechanisms of action of environmental toxins and their related diseases in recent years. Fish offer many advantages that complement classic mammalian models for the study of normal development as well as for neurobehavioral effects of exposure to chemicals. Fish provide a key intermediate model of neurobehavioral toxicity between high throughput in vitro cell-based assays and the classic mammalian models as they have the accessibility of in vitro models and the complex functional capabilities of mammalian models. The present article reviews recent research progress on neurobehavioral toxicology studies using fish as a model, and we present and discuss the neurobehavioral toxicity of typical pollutants (microplastics and toxins absorbed to microplastics, organic pollutants, et al.) and drugs (alcohol, caffeine, benzodiazepines, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, et al.) on fish. And future research directions are proposed. The article is expected to provide a reference for researchers in neurobehavioral toxicity and its application.