Summary of anxiogenic and anxiolytic modulation of adult zebrafish behavior in standard 6-min novel tank test (see Fig. S1 in Supplementary Materials for raw data from these experiments).

This analysis illustrates the strong predictive validity of traditional, manually quantified behavioral endpoints in the novel tank test. Well-established ‘reference’ anxiogenic manipulations include acute alarm pheromone (7 mL for 5 min), repeated morphine withdrawal (exposure for 1.5 mg/L for 2 weeks; withdrawal for 3 h twice daily for 1 week), acute caffeine (250 mg/L for 20 min) and the use of high-anxiety leopard zebrafish strain. Reference anxiolytic treatments include chronic fluoxetine (100 µg/L for 2 weeks), chronic ethanol (0.3% vol/vol for 1 week), chronic morphine (1.5 mg/L for 2 weeks) and acute nicotine (10 mg/L for 5 min). Statistically significant differences from matched controls (p<0.05, U-test) are represented by solid arrows (empty arrows denote trends; p = 0.05–0.085, U-test): up – increase, down – decrease; empty fields indicate no significant effects, n/a – data not available. In addition to behavioral endpoints, the table also includes whole-body cortisol data, presented here to parallel zebrafish behavioral and physiological anxiety-like responses.