ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Behav. Neurosci.
Sec. Individual and Social Behaviors
This article is part of the Research TopicNeurobiology and behavior in fish: Insights and innovationsView all 3 articles
Exploring the Impact of Acute Solvent Exposure on Larval Zebrafish Behaviour
Provisionally accepted
- 1University Of Alberta Department of Psychiatry, Edmonton, Canada
- 2MacEwan University, Edmonton, Canada
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Zebrafish (Danio rerio) are commonly used to test the impact of pharmacological and toxicological compounds. Larval zebrafish are extensively used because of high throughput procedures allowing simultaneous behavioural measurement in 24-, 48-, or 96-well plates. Often solvents are used as a vehicle for poorly soluble or insoluble compounds, however, the impact on dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), methanol, and ethanol after acute administration is not well characterized. Here we investigated the impact of 30-minute exposures of DMSO, methanol, and ethanol (0.01, 0.1, and 1.0% vol/vol) on 5-day old larval zebrafish locomotion and startle responses. We found no effect of DMSO on distance moved and thigmotaxis in a spontaneous swimming test, and no effect on dark-, light-, or tap-startle responses compared to controls. Methanol and ethanol, both at 1.0% increased the distance moved, and ethanol decreased the dark startle response at 1.0%. Neither ethanol or methanol had any impact on time in thigmotaxis zone, light-or tap-startle responses. Results from this study suggest that with acute exposure to experimental compounds requiring a solvent the least impact on behaviour would occur with DMSO, followed by methanol, then ethanol.
Keywords: Pharmacology, Toxicology, danio rerio, DMSO, Methanol, Ethanol, Startle responses
Received: 03 Oct 2025; Accepted: 06 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Hagen, Zhang, Harper and Hamilton. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Trevor James Hamilton, trevorjameshamilton@gmail.com
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