Deep learning dives: Predicting anxiety in zebrafish through novel tank assay analysis

Behavior is fundamental to neuroscience research, providing insights into the mechanisms underlying thoughts, actions and responses. Various model organisms, including mice, flies, and fish, are employed to understand these mechanisms. Zebrafish, in particular, serve as a valuable model for studying anxiety-like behavior, typically measured through the novel tank diving (NTD) assay. Traditional methods for analyzing NTD assays are either manually intensive or costly when using specialized software. To address these limitations, it is useful to develop methods for the automated analysis of zebrafish NTD assays using deep-learning models. In this study, we classified zebrafish based on their anxiety levels using DeepLabCut. Subsequently, based on a training dataset of image frames, we compared deep-learning models to identify the model best suited to classify zebrafish as anxious or non anxious and found that specific architectures, such as InceptionV3, are able to effectively perform this classification task. Our findings suggest that these deep learning models hold promise for automated behavioral analysis in zebrafish, offering an efficient and cost-effective alternative to traditional methods.