Depression affects more than 120 million people world wide (according to the World Health Organization), and the cost of treatment is estimated at 30 billion dollars each year. At this year’s SfN meeting in San Diego, Dr. Herwig Baier presented some very interesting findings:
Dr. Baier and his team found that disrupting the stress response in zebrafish can generate behavioral phenotypes that resemble behaviors characteristic to depression. His work suggests that depression could be linked to a individual’s ability to cope with stress.
The zebrafish displaying depression-like behaviors carried a mutation in the glucocorticoid receptor gene, which is involved in stress management. However, the depression-like behaviors were ameliorated when the fish were given Prozac.
New therapies might be able to play into the activity of the glucocorticoid receptor, and promoting its activity instead of blocking it.
Since I have last posted, there are some new video articles on JoVE involving zebrafish research. A team at MIT published a video protocol showing how to do injections in the zebrafish brain ventricle. This can aid in the study of ventricle formation and morphology. When studying the effect of teratogens, it could also be interesting to look at brain morphology using this technique. Here are some images shown on JoVE from this protocol.
JoVE stands for “Journal of Visualized Experiments”, and basically that is exactly what it delivers. JoVE is a new concept that tries to marry scientific reporting with video. Think of a typical journal article describing a protocol or experiment, and now imagine you can actually see the researcher perform the experiments on video. This is the format JoVE uses to report scientific research, and since it is also indexed in PubMed, the content really does go beyond your short little YouTube video. The concept also remains true to the layout of a typical research article, including an abstract, an introduction, and a conclusion. However, video articles on JoVE spend a lot of time on the actual experimental protocol, which is a huge benefit in relatively novel fields, such as in the use of zebrafish, or when learning to use new technology.
JoVE publishes articles in a number of different categories, focusing on the life sciences:
Medicine
Neuroscience
Developmental Biology
Cellular Biology
Plant Biology
Microbiology
Immunology
Basic Protocols
Zebrafish fit in all but one of those categories, so there are tons of opportunities to learn about the different types of zebrafish research being done. Best of all, because it is a video based journal, and zebrafish research is relatively new, the opportunity to learn new protocols is also pretty good. When it comes to the Materials and Methods section of a traditional journal, I can rarely say I find it particularly entertaining and most of the time not even really that interesting. However, seeing the experiment being performed on video makes it not only educational, informative, but also particularly entertaining.
JoVE subscription vs free content
The production costs associated with each of the research articles published in JoVE is understandably much higher than in traditional paper publishing. This cost has to be offset somehow, and researchers wanting to publish in JoVE are met with relatively high publishing costs. Aside from this, a lot of the content is only available to viewers who have a membership (which is actually very reasonably priced). The paid content is easily recognized, because you’re met with a video that is locked:
There is quite a bit of content that is open access though, where you can see the complete video journal article for free. Why are some videos not locked? Simple, the authors paid more money to make them open access! Personally, I really appreciate this and I’ve already found a number of very interesting open access zebrafish research articles on JoVE:
I really believe this new concept in scientific research reporting is an amazing way of staying on top of the latest (zebrafish) research. What do you think? I’d love to hear your comments!
The journal “Zebrafish” has published an interested how-to article with very practical applications for researchers getting their feet wet using zebrafish as a model organism. The article is titled “Modular, Easy-To-Assemble, Low-Cost Zebrafish Facility”, by Kim et al. (Zebrafish. 2009 September; 6(3): 269–274).
TheThe PubMed entry for this article includes the following abstract from the authors:
“We have constructed a standalone, modular, low-cost water recirculation zebrafish facility in our laboratory. This is easy to maintain and will take only approximately $500 and a half a day to build an 80-tank module. The system described here will be useful to even investigators who are new to zebrafish aquaculture.”
Having worked in a zebrafish facility that started out with, literally, 20 fish or so, I’m excited this article was published. Researchers who want to built their own zebrafish facility shouldn’t have to reinvent the wheel.
Find the article directly from the publisher here. Or through pubmed: PMID 19694524
This is by no means a new video, but even after a couple of years on youtube, it is a great quick peak into zebrafish embryonic development. Even though zebrafish develop fast, which fueled their popularity with developmental biologists, the timelapse video shows a complete overview of development in less than a minute.
Scientific work must not be considered from the point of view of the direct usefulness of it. It must be done for itself, for the beauty of science, and then there is always the chance that a scientific discovery may become the radium, a benefit for humanity.
~ Marie Curie
