To study alcohol: More robots, fewer animals? New York University rightOriginal StudyPosted by Kathleen Hamilton-NYU on June 7 2013NYU (US)  �  Robotic fish could reduce the number of live animals needed to study the effects of alcohol on behavior and the brain scientists say.A team of researchers introduced a robot designed to replicate the color pattern and tail beat motion of a fertile female zebrafish into shoals of live zebrafish.The species is highly social and in prior experiments showed a consistently strong affinity for this robotic member. The goal was to test whether alcohol could affect this well-established preference.Three groups of fish were treated with varying doses of ethanol in water �zero percent (control group) 0.25 percent and 1 percent by volume. These doses represent acute administration and cause neither lasting effect nor harm to the fish.The control group behaved as expected showing a marked preference for the robotic member assessed by the amount of time the fish spent in close proximity to the robot. The two ethanol-exposed groups deviated significantly from this pattern spending more time in other regions of the tank.Robots + live animalsThis is the first study to demonstrate use of robotic stimuli to study reward-related behavior in zebrafish and shows how the emerging field of ethorobotics �the interaction of biologically inspired robots with live animals �might change longstanding research models. �One of the major advantages of robotics is that we can provide a fully controllable consistent stimulus for the zebrafish � says Maurizio Porfiri associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University (NYU-Poly).  �The traditional stimulus in these experiments is another animal but individual variations can affect the results. �Robotic fish don t feel fatigue. Their tail beat frequency never changes. Every time we introduce the stimulus it s identical making the results much cleaner. �Porfiri and colleagues describe the method and detail the results of the fish experiments in the current issue of the journal Alcohol. �What we know right now is that robots can be a uniquely repetitive stimulus for those investigating the effects of alcohol on behavior � Porfiri adds.  �The innovation here is the method �we ve taken one of the elements of experimentation that can vary and standardized it. �What s next?Study collaborator and research scientist Simone Macr � � from the Italian Institute of Health adds:  �Such standardization was indeed mirrored by the live fish which behaved more consistently when confronted with the robot than when confronted with a live companion. �This aspect holds promise to reduce the number of live animals used in preclinical research. �Relatively little data exist to indicate how �or if �alcohol affects the cognitive abilities of zebrafish. The researchers believe that the change in behavior under the influence of alcohol may be attributed to impaired shoaling instincts or a shift in the incentive value of the robot from the fishes  perspective.In the next phase the team plans to deploy a robotic predator to test the impact of alcohol on the zebrafishes  sense of fear as well as evaluating whether exposure impacts fishes  willingness to make efforts to shoal with a robotic member.The National Science Foundation and the Honors Center of Italian Universities supported the project.Source: NYUYou are free to share this article under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported license.