The gut-microbiome and anxiety in male and female zebrafish

Recent research from the CDC indicates that 41.5% of adults in the US classify themselves as anxious or depressed. Interestingly, anxiety disorders are disproportionately more prevalent in women than men. It is well established that the microbiome greatly influences stress responses, mood states, and other aspects of brain health including anxiety disorders. It is also known that the microbial composition differs in males and females. This study aims to determine the similarities and differences between the male and female zebrafish microbiome and identify if these differences impact anxiety. Zebrafish were treated with amoxicillin to decrease the total intestinal bacterial abundance. The zebrafish were then subjected to an acute stress protocol or a chronic stress protocol. For acute stress, fish were net stressed for three minutes, followed by 3 minutes of acclimation. Chronic stress was induced over 8 days with fish being stressed daily prior to the three minute net stress. Fish behavior and anxiety were assessed using the EthoVision tracking system and software. We observed a 48% and 67% decrease in bacterial abundance in males and females respectively treated with amoxicillin (p<0.05, n= 5). Interestingly both males and females treated with antibiotics showed significantly fewer right and left crosses following acute stress exposure- no significant differences were observed between male and female fish (p<0.05, n=10). In chronically stressed fish, no differences were seen in anxiety-like behavior in control or antibiotic-treated fish regardless of sex. These results support current research indicating the overall role of the microbiome in anxiety and depression however, the differences between intestinal bacteria in males and females behavior remains unclear. Elon University This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2023 meeting and is only available in HTML format. There are no additional versions or additional content available for this abstract. Physiology was not involved in the peer review process.