title: Zebrafish and relational memory: Could a simple fish be useful for the analysis of biological mechanisms of complex vertebrate learning?
abstract: Analysis of the zebrafish allows one to combine two distinct scientific approaches, comparative ethology and neurobehavioral genetics. Furthermore, this species arguably represents an optimal compromise between system complexity and practical simplicity. This mini-review focuses on a complex form of learning, relational learning and memory, in zebrafish. It argues that zebrafish are capable of this type of learning, and it attempts to show how this species may be useful in the analysis of the mechanisms and the evolution of this complex brain function. The review is not intended to be comprehensive. It is a short opinion piece that reflects the author's own biases, and it draws some of its examples from the work coming from his own laboratory. Nevertheless, it is written in the hope that it will persuade those who have not utilized zebrafish and who may be interested in opening their research horizon to this relatively novel but powerful vertebrate research tool.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Toronto Mississauga, 3359 Mississauga Road North, Rm CCT4004 Mississauga, Ontario L5L 1C6, Canada. Electronic address: robert_gerlai@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Gerlai
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000502:physiology*; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D015027:Zebrafish
keywords: Context learning; Episodic memory; Relational learning; Spatial learning; Zebrafish