Efeito da hiperalimentação sobre transtornos de comportamento em modelo experimental

Abstract

So far, research on obesity has mostly focused on studying the burden of chronic diseases. However, evidence suggests a relationship between eating habits and obesity and brain functions that can result in neurological alterations. The general objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of overfeeding with a diet considered ideal for zebrafish on behavioral disorders. Thus, 30 zebrafish were fed Artemia sp. for 60 days. They were divided into two groups: hyperfed with Artemia sp.: 60 mg/day/fish (first month) and 120 mg/day/fish (second month) and normofed with Artemia sp.: 15 mg/day/fish (first month) and 75 mg/day/fish (second month). Afterwards, tests were carried out on anxiety-like behavior (new tank test), social behavior (shoal preference test) and acute stress (exposure to a co-specific alarm substance). The results for the anxiety test showed some differences between the groups in locomotor parameters - with a statistically significant difference in three of the eight evaluated, being time on top (p = 0.0307); time in the middle (p = 0.0458) and immobile time on the bottom (p = 0.0457), the hyperfed zebrafish always showed longer times. The results for the social behavior test showed that the hyperfed fish had a significantly higher average speed than the normal-fed fish (p = 0.0007). However, overfeeding did not provoke a more intense response in the induction of acute stress. Therefore, even given these results, and considering that only one or the other parameter of each of the tests showed statistical differences, it cannot be said that overfeeding, offered under the conditions of this study, did in fact have an effect on the behavioral disorders evaluated