Reversal of reserpine-induced depression and cognitive disorder in zebrafish by sertraline and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM)

Abstract

BackgroundWith increased social pressure, individuals face a high risk of depression. Subsequently, depression affects cognitive behaviour and negatively impacts daily life. Fortunately, the Traditional Chinese Medicine Jia Wei Xiao Yao (JWXY) capsule is effective in reducing depression and improving cognitive behaviour.MethodsThe constituents of JWXY capsule were identified by ultra-performance liquid chromatography and quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry analyses. We analysed behaviours of depression-like zebrafish in the novel tank with an automatic 3D video-tracking system and conducted the colour preference test, as well detected physiological changes after sertraline and JWXY capsule treatments.ResultsBoth sertraline and JWXY capsule rescued the decreased locomotive behaviour and depression phenotype of zebrafish caused by reserpine. JWXY capsule especially improved the inhibited exploratory behaviour caused by reserpine. In addition, with the onset of depressive behaviour, zebrafish exhibited alterations in cognitive behaviour as indicated by colour preference changes. However, compared with sertraline, JWXY capsule was more efficaciously in rescuing this change in the colour preference pattern. Moreover, an increased level of cortisol, increased expression of tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) and decreased monoamine neurotransmitters, including serotonin (5-HT) and noradrenaline, were involved in the depressive behaviours. In addition, sertraline and JWXY capsule rescued the depressive phenotype and cognitive behaviour of zebrafish by altering the levels of endogenous cortisol and monoamine neurotransmitters.ConclusionsJWXY capsule was more effectively than sertraline in rescuing reserpine-induced depression and cognitive disorder in zebrafish. Potentially, our study can provide new insights into the clinical treatment of depression and the mechanism of action of JWXY capsule.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12993-018-0145-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Zebrafish Mutants Carrying Leptin a (lepa) Gene Deficiency Display Obesity, Anxiety, Less Aggression and Fear, and Circadian Rhythm and Color Preference Dysregulation

“…Similar to wild type fish, the lepa KO fish also avoided yellow color, suggesting that the lepa KO fish was still able to distinguish different colors. The color preference of depression induced zebrafish was similar to that of the lepa KO fish pattern found in the present study, with no preference among blue, red and green color [88]. It has been reported that humans with depression are likely to choose neutral colors such as grey and black compared with healthy humans who would choose blue and red color [89].…”

Method Standardization for Conducting Innate Color Preference Studies in Different Zebrafish Strains

“…It has been reported that the color of feed may affect the behavior of zebrafish [12]. Avoidance of yellow discovered in the present study is in line with earlier studies showing that zebrafish tend to avoid yellow [1,7,14]. Yellow has a higher light intensity compared with the other colors, which may contribute to the avoidance behavior in the present study.…”

“…Depression and anxiety have been linked with color preference changes in humans, and these changes have already been used to determine mental state in physiological studies [66]. Ethanol-treated fish showed a reduction in the choice index in the blue-yellow combination, similar to zebrafish depression behavior reported previously [14]. We also found that ethanol-treated fish exhibited a reduction in the choice index in the green-yellow combination.…”

“…Several color preferences have been commonly demonstrated in zebrafish; however, the results were sometimes contradictory (summarized in Table A3). For example, either red [11,12] or blue [1,3,6,7,13,14] has been reported with the highest color preference ranking in zebrafish. Different color preference ranking results reported by different laboratories may be due to variations in the light source position (provided from the top or bottom positions), color intensity (different illumination lux), and/or physical parameters such as fish age and gender [1][2][3]6,7,11,13,14].…”

A Novel Function of the Lysophosphatidic Acid Receptor 3 (LPAR3) Gene in Zebrafish on Modulating Anxiety, Circadian Rhythm Locomotor Activity, and Short-Term Memory

“…Therefore, in this study, a color preference test was done to investigate whether lpar3 gene deficiency would affect the color preference and perception of zebrafish. Unfortunately, there are still some differences regarding zebrafish color preference ranking based on several previous studies that may be caused by the differences in the color wavelength, light source position, and luminescence applied in the prior studies [44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51]. However, before conducting the experiment, considerable numbers of wild-type fish were tested to observe their color preferences ranking in our test with the current setting.…”