Posts by Gonny Smit

Fish live longer and are more active after eating “young poo”

Have you got the guts for it? Well, I hope you at least have the gut bacteria for it.

Isolated and stressed zebrafish as a model for major depression

Depression: a fifth (!) of us cope with it, making it the most prevalent psychiatric disorder. Prof. Gerlai recently investigated the interaction between mild stress and developmental isolation in zebrafish models.

Spatial and odor memory impaired mice – new model for Alzheimer’s

Plaques and tangles… those of you even remotely familiar with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) will immediately recognize these hallmarks. But they are linked to familial AD, while sporadic AD is far more common.

How obese mice get moving

By a showing of hands: how many of you started this New Year with the resolution to get moving? Burn off those extra holiday calories, or finally really get in shape?

How optogenetics is used to study the stress response in zebrafish larvae

Stress might seem like a bad word, but it does have its perks. A recent study by Rodrigo J. De Marco uncovered the role of the pituitary in zebrafish larvae behavior after the onset of stress.

Autistic mice have motor learning difficulties specific to the cerebellum

Autism is often associated with social behavior deficits and repetitive behaviors. However, motor abnormalities are also a part of the behavioral spectrum. Recent studies have implicated the cerebellum.

Discrimination learning without human intervention or food restriction

Sylics recently introduced CognitionWall, a new paradigm for discrimination learning in the home cage that avoids the necessity for food restriction and handling in learning tests.

The power of rejection (in fruit flies)

Fruit flies have amazing sense of smell. This includes the ability to navigate to a food source, as well as search out a preferred mate. However, there are other areas in which their olfactory systems come into play.

The use of video tracking in a HaXha test

When you get used to something, after a while you might not notice it anymore. Like a sent. The lab of Justus Verhagen investigated sniffing behavior with video tracking.

How fruit flies find your food (and mates!)

Those tiny flies that take over your garbage cans during the summer? They are called fruit flies for a reason! They have a fantastic sense of smell and these tiny creatures are a popular animal model for researchers.

How to get reliable results on object recognition using video tracking

In the beginning of this year I wrote a post about the Morris water maze test, a popular and well-validated paradigm to study learning and memory in rats and mice.

How sleep heals the brain

We sleep a large portion of our lives. And now researchers have proven that it can heal the brain.